Excerpt from Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship, 1st Edition, by Robert C. Martin
We’ve all said we’d go back and clean it up later. Of course, in those days we didn’t know LeBlanc’s law: Later equals never.
To drive this point home, what if you were a doctor and had a patient who demanded that you stop all the silly hand-washing in preparation for surgery because it was taking too much time?2 Clearly the patient is the boss; and yet the doctor should absolutely refuse to comply. Why? Because the doctor knows more than the patient about the risks of dis- ease and infection. It would be unprofessional (never mind criminal) for the doctor to comply with the patient.
So too it is unprofessional for programmers to bend to the will of managers who don’t understand the risks of making messes.
Excerpt from Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship, 1st Edition, by Robert C. Martin
We’ve all said we’d go back and clean it up later. Of course, in those days we didn’t know LeBlanc’s law: Later equals never.
To drive this point home, what if you were a doctor and had a patient who demanded that you stop all the silly hand-washing in preparation for surgery because it was taking too much time?2 Clearly the patient is the boss; and yet the doctor should absolutely refuse to comply. Why? Because the doctor knows more than the patient about the risks of dis- ease and infection. It would be unprofessional (never mind criminal) for the doctor to comply with the patient. So too it is unprofessional for programmers to bend to the will of managers who don’t understand the risks of making messes.