On Reading The Code

Engineers love to bicker about what “is the way.”Some of what we bicker about is recurring: tabs vs. spaces, Vim vs. Emacs. There is no true right or wrong. It isn’t that Vim is better than Emacs, and tabs aren’t necessarily better than spaces. We argue about which language to use, which framework to use, and which library is best. We go in circles, and the answer is typically: it depends.Then there is TDD[1]. There was a point when nobody was doing it, followed by a time when whether it was really worth it became a bit of a debate. For the most part, I think most people have come around to it being a huge asset. You can make a strong argument that it’s always better with TDD, but it takes time and discipline. We’ve also learned that there are places where, at least in the short run, TDD doesn’t add as much benefit as just shipping and getting to market faster.On the question of whether you should read the code, it is unequivocally 100% yes, no, maybe. Or, it depends.There isn’t a…