Big bang changes

I am making too many uncommitted changes. I am not taking small steps, not the continuous delivery way.

Even though I am a practitioner of continuous delivery, at times, I make big changes. It usually happens when I start working, and then move on to something because of an emergency. Or we decide to hold on the feature we started with. It can also happen when I am experimenting with an idea or a library.

But I quickly become aware of the mistake. It is not because I need to follow the rule. I know that too many changes can bring breaking changes.

What I usually do in those situations?

git reset --hard
git clean -fd

I revert the changes and start fresh. That way, I add only the required changes. We think it takes longer to implement the changes again. Surprisingly, it is usually faster because:

• We know what needs to be done, we have taken the path already. Similar to the Tracer Bullet concept from Pragmatic Programmer.
• We tend to avoid unnecessary code because we know what is needed and what is not.