Now, Geoff was no slacker, he wrote a final 400 line client and 1250 server: very respectable. To achieve this it took him 4 hours of work going forwards, however he lost many times that going backwards, testing compatibility and re-writing badly planned code! All in all, it took him twice as long to finish what he thought was a simple one day project. Why?
If Geoff had taken a little time befire he started reading some documentation and sketching out some flow diagrams and application structure diagrams, like how the threads run in parallel to what, what sockets do what and how his special protocol would send/recieve data would only take 30 minutes and ultimately save him a rewrite and re-adjustment of his application - a one day task involving over 900 lines of lost code.
Please people - plan! In truth, I have many projects, maybe even more than a dozen, that I have never completed - yet are so close to fruition - they are not flexible and badly planned. The final result was a botch job that barely works, that pen and paper may be low tech and while others may start coding dozens of lines before you - that pen and paper lets you write to what is on your planning page and work KNOWING that what you code will work right first time, bar a few bugs form human error, but you will finish - fast, and you'll avoid a world of confusion.
If you can - enter Ludum Dare 48h, and timelapse yourself working. Then look at your product and your timelapse. Find the winner and look at their product and timelapse - I'm willing to bet they didn't rewrite the same thing twice, leave the desk for 6 hours out of frustration, desperation and general hate at their project before coming back to a botch job...
Remember, don't think you're doing the right thing - know you are. Otherwise its stinging nettles and brambles. A world of hurt.
Next time: Planning suggestions, a quick 101 on how to be the invisible code architect...
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