All engineers have probably heard this popular story at some point in their life: An engineer is called to fix a complicated machine, which the engineer fixes in minimal time by just replacing a screw. The engineer presents an exorbitant bill for the service, and when questioned by the customer, explains that the cost of the screw is only 1% of the bill, and the remaining 99% is for replacing the "right" screw.
It occurred to me that this story applies pretty well to the software engineering field. In the software engineering world, if I had a dollar to spend on a line of code, I would put 1c on the actual code itself, and the remaining 99c on the location of the code. Why would I do that? After all, as long as the code is working, does it really matter where it exists? The truth is that code added to the correct method, class and component makes a significant difference in the readability and maintainability of the code. Correct design ensures that the code is placed in the correct location, so the moral of the story is - to get the biggest bang for your buck, focus on the correct design and not on just getting the code to work. Remember, in a world with 9 billion people, there are probably millions who can write working code, but only a selected few who can design it correctly.
It occurred to me that this story applies pretty well to the software engineering field. In the software engineering world, if I had a dollar to spend on a line of code, I would put 1c on the actual code itself, and the remaining 99c on the location of the code. Why would I do that? After all, as long as the code is working, does it really matter where it exists? The truth is that code added to the correct method, class and component makes a significant difference in the readability and maintainability of the code. Correct design ensures that the code is placed in the correct location, so the moral of the story is - to get the biggest bang for your buck, focus on the correct design and not on just getting the code to work. Remember, in a world with 9 billion people, there are probably millions who can write working code, but only a selected few who can design it correctly.
