Things We Always Remind Ourselves While Coding

Our Frontend Feud game show series forces me to survey JS Party listeners frequently to get their thoughts on software, development, life, and software development life.

Each question has to be accompanied by an because providing choices ruins the entire point of the game. So, before we play I compile all the answers in an SQLite database, group similar responses, and put the most popular ones on the game board.

That “grouping similar responses” step is the hardest part and can be somewhat controversial during the games. I’ve gotten better over the years at crafting the questions to constrain the responses.

For example, instead of asking: “How do you feel about GitHub Copilot?”

We ask: “In one word, how does GitHub Copilot make you feel?”

“Anxious” works better in a `GROUP BY` than “I’m concerned that it’ll take my job”

Nevertheless, some questions we ask aren’t usable because the responses are just too varied to group in any meaningful way. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t interesting! For our most recent game, we asked our listeners:

“What is one thing you always have to remind yourself when coding?”

The responses were all over the place, so I didn’t use it in the game. But they do provide a cool peak into the minds of developers. It’d be a shame to let them sit privately on some disk drive until its bits fade to black.

So, without further ado… We asked 100 JS Party listeners what ONE thing they always have to remind themselves when coding. Survey says!

R.I.P. to the late, great Norm Macdonald

On health & wellness

Exercise
Take a break (7x)
Don’t burn out
Make sure to eat
My body position
Clean up your damn editor tabs

Pep talk & self-encouragement

I can do this
It’s ok to fail
You can do it
You’ll figure it out
The solution is probably simple
Everyone has the same struggles
There’s got to be a way to do this
I’m not stupid—this just takes time
There IS a solution, just have to find it
Writing failing code is not a personality trait
It’s going to be difficult before it gets easier

Small things easily forgotten

To commit
Commit often
Check your imports
How to iterate objects
Something related to regex
16 times table for px to rem
JavaScript has explicit returns
The computer does exactly what it was told

Following best practices

Keep it simple (8x)
Verify, don’t trust
Don’t DRY too soon
Add sensible comments
Good commit messages
Simple is better than smart
Don’t forget to do that side refactor

Remember testing?

Write tests! (4x)
Run the tests
Are there any tests?
Cross-browser testing
Test more than the happy path

Focus is everySQUIRREL!

Not to drift off
Don’t surf the web
One thing at a time
Read docs properly
What am I working on?
Read the documentation
Read (and reread) the error message
Finish committing before pushing (seriously)
You don’t have time to try that new thing out
(distracted) What was I supposed to be doing?
Don’t spend an hour on tiny things that don’t matter

Slowing down vs going faster

Slow down
Ship sooner
Optimize it later
It’s good enough
Stop overthinking it
Don’t over-optimize
Don’t over-engineer
Slow down and think
Just get something working
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good
There’s no single perfect solution, there are always drawbacks
Better to get something out than sitting analyzing the problem

Considering the bigger picture

No one will die
Not saving lives
Don’t hate on others
The end user, not me
It’s all for the customer
Consider your future self
Hi, I’m the problem it’s me
Zoom out, see the bigger picture
Be sure the problem is worth solving
Value is the most important thing that you bring to the company
I’m going to have to come back to this at some point, so make it easy to understand

I saved the weirdest best reminder for last. This one doesn’t fit neatly into any of the categories above. I hope Tom Cochrane doesn’t mind, but I gave it the motivational poster treatment so we can enjoy it with the gravity it deserves:

Background image by kimi lee on Unsplash

Your turn!! What’s ONE thing you always have to remind yourself while coding? Is it covered above or uniquely different? Leave a comment below and let us know 👇

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