Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Button your code up at day's end
Wednesday, April 2, 2008 
Throughout a typical day I get requests to make changes to prototypes and simulations. However sometimes the changes are requested not by email, phone call, but in person. Which means I normally am editing class files with the requester over my shoulder.I end up commenting a lot of stuff out (especially since the AS3 compiler really wants things to be tidy), slapping in semi-stub code, perhaps a magic™ number here and there, and I end up with something that maintains the requested changes, but leaves the code overall in a shaky state.
I don't know about you, but when I leave for the evening and my code isn't buttoned up to a certain degree, I won't be able to sleep. I don't even like to keep commented code in my sources for long either (that's why we have version control right? If I need to resurrect a method then I can use Subversion to get it).
It's easy to say, "I'll get to it tomorrow." But we all know that doesn't always happen. And if you get rounds of changes, and you don't keep up on things, it gets harder and harder to go back and do things correctly. It takes some dedication to do it, especially if you're tired out at day's end. But you'll thank yourself later for it, even if you are getting change requests, it's good to keep your code really clean as often as you can.
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