

"I love shitty code that just gets the job done. This job probably isn't for me" - resdirector
http://tomblah.posterous.com/i-love-shitty-code-that-just-gets-the-job-don

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j_baker
This old debate again? I suppose it's been a while since I've argued it, so I
might as well jump in. :-)

It's incredibly naive to say that crappy code that gets the job done is
generally good. Ok, sure. Sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and
write an ugly hack to get the job done. But if you keep it up, you spend more
time maintaining the ugly hacks than you do coding new stuff.

So here's my advice:

1\. Stop. _Breathe_.

2\. Think about what you're doing before you do it.

3\. Do it.

This has worked wonders for me. It's incredible how easy it is to not write
crappy code, and it pays off. And for the record, I'm one of the biggest
instant gratification junkies I know. I'm not saying one needs to write good
code because I don't want to get things done.

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harlowja
Pride in what you produce is sometimes worth the extra effort :-)

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grampajoe
You may be confusing "shitty code" with prototyping.

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jonsmock
Agreed. The minute you know the feature _does_ have traction and won't go away
any time soon is the minute you clean or rewrite that code.

This may be semantics at some level, but I think it's important to not imply
you just don't care about the quality of your code. Prototyping intentionally
sacrifices some quality to prove a point quickly, but once the point is
proven, you throw it away and rewrite with your normal, high standards.

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veyron
I think a lot of people in the "I hate crappy code" camp tend to spend too
much time trying to fix seemingly crappy code, time that arguably would better
be spent fixing other, more important bugs.

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smoove
"We'll do a rewrite later on ...", nope!

