Upward spiral

[This was originally posted at http://timstall.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/upward_spiral.htm]

We've all heard of the dreaded downward spiral, where you're behind schedule with lots of bugs, so you cut corners and rush sloppy work, only to create more bugs and get further behind. Some folks seem to think this is just a right of passage for computer programming, but it doesn't have to be that way. Just like there's a downward spiral, there's also an upward spiral, where you do good process and coding upfront, which saves you time, with which you can further improve your tools and process.

 

I'm a big fan of the upward spiral. The best way I see to jump on the upward spiral is to focus your resources on things that last, and avoid spending your resources on things that don't. For example, there's no benefit to you to waste hundreds of hours writing data-access plumbing code. You learn nothing new, you're probably not energized by it, and everyone around you likely just takes plumbing for granted. Things that "last" include your personal and technical knowledge, tools, helper classes, and any other thing that you can take with you to the next project or feature. Things that "don't last" are tedious bug fixes, plumbing code, obsolete technologies, and pointless trivia. These things help with the immediate task, but then are (usually) useless afterwards.

 

Practical ways to spend your resources on things that last:

• If you're developing on your own time, if at all possible, focus on learning new technology and techniques that you find interesting - as opposed to just plugging on a boring feature because it might impress your boss. Knowing the new techniques will let you develop much faster later, which will both permanently enhance your developing skills, and impress your boss.

• Try to learn something new each day. Usually if you're working for 8 hours, you can squeeze in a half-hour of experiments that relate to that work. Learning something new each day will quickly add up. Ideally, a developer could happily answer the question "what did you learn today?"

• Actively pursue features that will teach you something. All else being equal, a good boss will want to give you features you're interested in because they know that you'll then be motivated to do a better job of it. So, aggressively show interest in the features that give you learning opportunities. Consider even investing your own personal time to prepare for it. If you invest two hours on the weekend to understand enough of the background to be qualified on a feature, which then lets you spend two weeks actually programming it hands on, that's a great investment.

I understand that sometimes your current project forces you into a rut, and you're just trying to survive. I still remember several 70 hr/week projects when I used to do consulting.  But it's always good to keep your eye on the prize - even if right now sucks, at least be aware of that in order to strive for something better.