Code for Brains, Not Computers
Or Neurons, not transistors, if you prefer.
Most of the cost associated with developing software is in understanding, updating & fixing it - not running it. Especially when you include the cost of onboarding & training, and the cost of mistakes & misunderstandings.
Brains are limited in memory, attention & interest, and cannot be scaled in the same way computing resources can.
Brains fatigue and falter. Throughout the day, the week, the year, and the career. They perform worse over time and the more you tax them.
Cognitive effort is the first cost to optimise. Not CPU cycles, RAM, build minutes, test coverage or anything else.
Do this for creating tickets, git commit size, focus, and relationships; and communicating, documenting and performing review.
Related
- Use delta-based tickets
- Commits to read like your terminal history
- Emojis are the solution to userless commit messages
- Git Gardening
- The 4 Is of pull requests
- Your first reviewer is a duck
- Getting to better code review