Writting good code is a matter of good manners with the next developer and creating a culture of quality in your company.
Writing fast and without caring about quality may work for a solo developer but, when you start to onboard new developers, there is the risk that they assume that it is ok neglect the quality of the product. At the end, if the CTO does not care that much, why should I care?
Besides, writing good code is not harder than writing bad code. What is hard is to learn how to write good code.
Still, I agree that it is better to have a not perfect product, rather than no product at all. But my opinion is that not caring about good software quality and good practices is a bigger risk than people tend to think.
I hear what you're saying, but there is no culture, no company, no next developer if you don't have users. I'm just saying you have to find a balance. Requirements are fluid.
I care immensely about doing things the right way, to the point that it is counter productive. I wrote this post because I realized that my level of focus on quality wasn't appropriate for the constraints I was facing in the real world.
Yeah. And, actually, "overdoing" software quality can become a form of procrastination as well.
But this is one extreme of the spectrum. The problem is that a lot of developers are on the other extreme. I feel that sometimes people don't understand that, for a startup, the risk of failing from technical bankruptcy is as real as the risk of failing from financial bankruptcy.
Writting good code is a matter of good manners with the next developer and creating a culture of quality in your company.
Writing fast and without caring about quality may work for a solo developer but, when you start to onboard new developers, there is the risk that they assume that it is ok neglect the quality of the product. At the end, if the CTO does not care that much, why should I care?
Besides, writing good code is not harder than writing bad code. What is hard is to learn how to write good code.
Still, I agree that it is better to have a not perfect product, rather than no product at all. But my opinion is that not caring about good software quality and good practices is a bigger risk than people tend to think.
I hear what you're saying, but there is no culture, no company, no next developer if you don't have users. I'm just saying you have to find a balance. Requirements are fluid.
I care immensely about doing things the right way, to the point that it is counter productive. I wrote this post because I realized that my level of focus on quality wasn't appropriate for the constraints I was facing in the real world.
Yeah. And, actually, "overdoing" software quality can become a form of procrastination as well.
But this is one extreme of the spectrum. The problem is that a lot of developers are on the other extreme. I feel that sometimes people don't understand that, for a startup, the risk of failing from technical bankruptcy is as real as the risk of failing from financial bankruptcy.
That makes a lot of sense. Maybe calling code quality "overrated" is a little dangerous.