The Little Things Matter
Before I started my career as a software engineer I ran track and cross country for a Division 1 school (go gophers!). One lesson that I learned, and yet still struggle with today, is that doing the little things matters. With running this was doing things like eating right, strength training, ice baths, stretching, etc. In the running community everyone knew these would help you perform better, but it was harder to picture the results. You knew those 18 mile long runs would benefit your racing, you could almost feel yourself get more fit after each one. Whereas stretching, for example, felt somewhat less important.
The benefits of these “little things” were more indirect. They help you to avoid injury or make your running form more efficient. These were things on paper you knew would make you faster in the long run (pun partially intended), but were easy to skip over when you’re tired from your training run.
In my experience, I’ve observed a similar phenomenon in myself with writing software. Delivering features is what we do as developers, but it’s not all just about the user facing product. Failing to do the little things leads to poor quality code, which becomes difficult and expensive to maintain.
So what are the little things with programming? Here are some of the things I try to focus on:
- Readable and concise logic including clear names for variables, methods, classes, unit tests, etc
- Appropriate test coverage
- Helpful API documentation for APIs and libraries
- Comments (but only when necessary!)
- Always keeping the CI builds green
The above list is by no means comprehensive, just some things to get people thinking.
Just like when I ran, I still struggle to do the little things all the time; I’m only human. When there’s a tight deadline, or even if I’m just tired from the week, I find myself tempted to create a lazily named variable or method. I might say to myself I’ll write a unit test later or write a quick comment to try and excuse unclear code or logic.
With each project I think I get a little bit better at doing the little things. I’ve felt the pain of what happens when I neglect the little things when I ran. I spent a month on crutches because I failed to do the little things and got injured. I’ve also experienced what it’s like to try add features to a code base whose developers (and yes, I’m including myself here) took short cuts.
I also believe there are ways to help stay disciplined and do these “little things”. Pair programming, for example, is a great way to make sure you’re staying disciplined. I was fortunate enough to work for a company like ThoughtWorks where I got to pair with people that kept me honest and took the little things seriously every day.
I’d love to hear what are some of the little things you find to be important, and what strategies you use to stay disciplined and implement them!
