Take the Long way Home

Good programmers have good habits.

Sometimes they develop these habits on their own, and sometimes they pick up best practices from other good programmers or even the industry.

Their habits are never arbitrary. They do what they do, for a reason, even if they can’t explain it fully.

One super great habit is to always take the longer, slower, right way whenever possible.

It’s a simple habit. If you have a choice between taking a quick shortcut or some way slower, but rather obviously more correct way, then you train yourself to take the long way home.

However, on those really bad days, when everything is going crazy and there are serious problems that need help right away, you can take the shortcut. But taking the shortcut is the exception, not the rule.

If you have time, you take the long way home.

Why?

Shortcuts always have tricky side effects and unexpected consequences. Take enough of them and everything goes to hell. So, you want to use them liberally. Know about them, be willing to use them, but save them for the moment that you really, really, really need them.

If you do this, it will cut down on technical debt. Not by a little, but by a huge amount. And in those moments where you do need a shortcut and you do deliberately kick up the technical debt, it was an emergency, so you’ll at least get the most credit for it, even if you do end up having to redo the work later.