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Developers Have Met the Enemy and It’s Themselves
The developer that can cause you the most problems is yourself
“The worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself.” Friedrich Nietzsche
One of the most important lessons every developer must learn is they can be their own worst enemy and in their career cause themselves problems?
It’s the punch you don’t see coming that knocks you out and sometimes developers can punch themselves in the face.
In between creating awesome software, developers can often be found tripping themselves up and getting in their own way.
Assumptions — Talking instead of listening
Creating software is a dance between the customer and the developer. The customer should lead the development team and the developers gracefully follow their lead.
Developers listen long enough to get a rough idea of the requirements before they drift away into the lovely world of designing the technical solution.
There is usually plenty of gaps in the requirements that need to be clarified. Instead of understanding the business and clarifying the requirements, the developer will assume how the system should work.
The developer builds software on top of these assumptions. When users get to use the software, bugs appear where the assumptions are wrong.
Assumptions are bugs created by developers thinking they know how the software should work. Not only do you bug for the assumption, but you also get bugs for functionality dependent on the assumptions.
Technical first attitude
When Developers and software projects focus on the technical solution, they lose sight the goal of creating software. The goal of the software is to be a tool for users to do their jobs and to help the business.
We should always create software with the business taking center stage and leading the project. The software should align with the business processes, people and problems.
