This does happen a lot, but have you ever had the opposite happen? Where you go into some of your older code, and not only is it nice to read, but you had anticipated that you’d have to make this change later, and so the design makes the change easy?
That’s happened to me a few times and all I can say is that it takes days for my self-satisfaction to wane.
This actually happened to me last month. I had to touch code from a previous team/project I was on.
I got the call for a collaboration/consult. I forgot everything about it. Jumped in a meeting next day anyway. We pulled up the code. Everything was documented and I had a section with parameters for a “wish” feature that they actually wanted finally. I pointed it out and told them the needful to finish the feature.
Happens more often the better you get at your craft. I used to say that if you don’t hate the code you wrote last year, you’re not improving. Well, let’s just say I finally stopped hating mine.
This does happen a lot, but have you ever had the opposite happen? Where you go into some of your older code, and not only is it nice to read, but you had anticipated that you’d have to make this change later, and so the design makes the change easy?
That’s happened to me a few times and all I can say is that it takes days for my self-satisfaction to wane.
This actually happened to me last month. I had to touch code from a previous team/project I was on.
I got the call for a collaboration/consult. I forgot everything about it. Jumped in a meeting next day anyway. We pulled up the code. Everything was documented and I had a section with parameters for a “wish” feature that they actually wanted finally. I pointed it out and told them the needful to finish the feature.
Then I had a nice 5pm Scotch.
I used to be better at math and coding. If I pulled up my old project euler solutions I’m not sure I’d understand them anymore.
Happens more often the better you get at your craft. I used to say that if you don’t hate the code you wrote last year, you’re not improving. Well, let’s just say I finally stopped hating mine.