The Passionate Programmer

Tip 32

Say It, Do It, Show It

The easiest way to never get anything done is to never commit to anything. If you don’t have a deadline, you don’t have any pressure or much incentive to finish something. This is especially true when the something that needs to get done isn’t 100 percent exciting.

Even a bad manager’s instinct usually tells them that it’s important to plan. For some developers, the invocation of the word plan is cause for alarm. Endless meetings with pointy-haired bosses creating reams of printed Microsoft Project plans that nobody understands or uses are a valid cause for alarm. So, techies often overcompensate in our rebellion against perceived overplanning by constantly flying by the seat of our pants.

Planning isn’t such ...