I was listening to a podcast about writing quality code recently, and since we just announced the Reliable Web Summit, this topic has been on my mind.
Is code an asset or a liability? I think this is a question that not all developers have pondered, and a fundamental understanding or even just an opinion on this, can radically change your view on writing code.
There’s lots of ways to define assets & liabilities, but we’ll use the following question as a way to judge if something is an asset or a liability. Is having more of it a desirable thing, or an undesirable thing? If it’s desirable, it’s an asset. If it’s undesirable to have more of it, it’s a liability.
Now, is code an asset or a liability?
Simply ask yourself the following question. All things being equal, is it better to have more code or less?
Let’s say you can build a system two different ways, and one way requires 100 lines of code, and the other way requires 1,000 lines. Which way is more desirable?
Let’s look at another way to ask this same question. What kinds of feelings come to you when I suggest working on a system with 1,000 lines of code? Ok, now 10,000 lines? Now 100,000 lines? How about 1,000,000 lines?
Do you feel more and more anxious about it as the size grows? What does that tell you?
True, code enables us to do things. But do we want code for code’s sake? Or do we want to leverage third-party libraries, and frameworks, and remove duplication, etc. So that we write the fewest lines possible?
So what is code? Is it an asset? Or a liability? What do you think?
Now that you’ve read this article and learned a thing or two (or ten!), let’s kick things up another notch!
Take your skills to a whole new level by joining us in person for the world’s first MAJOR Angular conference in over 2 years! Not only will You be hearing from some of the industry’s foremost experts in Angular (including the Angular team themselves!), but you’ll also get access to:
- Expert panels and Q&A sessions with the speakers
- A friendly Hallway Track where you can network with 1,500 of your fellow Angular developers, sponsors, and speakers alike.
- Hands-on workshops
- Games, prizes, live entertainment, and be able to engage with them and a party you’ll never forget
We’ll see you there this August 29th-Sept 2nd, 2022. Online-only tickets are available as well.
https://2022.ng-conf.org/
