Plan to Plan
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize & Your Code on the App
Much of coding is focused on details. Every programmer has spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to find a stray semicolon.
While being detail-oriented is an important skill while coding, it won’t get you far when actually building an application. Too often we get stuck, not only on finding stray punctuation that breaks our code, but most often on the act of coding.
We code to solve problems, not to solve code.
Every program built, is designed to accomplish a goal for a user. To do that, we need to stay focused on the big picture.
Trying to code without a full understanding of the gestalt is like baking with a child. You’ll eventually finish, but it’s going to be a messy process, you’ll skip a step or two, time will be wasted playing with ingredients, and the final result won’t be as good as it could have been.
Longer-term projects, like creating an application, require planning and goal-directed persistence can become aversive and less appealing as times passes (i.e., passing up “quick rewards” in order to plan for “long-term payoff.”)
Applying a framework for evaluating whether a detail is important to the big picture will aid efficiency in planning.
Once you know your goal, write down an effective plan!
Each task should be:
Try it out! Do each of these tasks follow the checklist?
