Design Your Code to Be Easily Deleted

When coding, my motto is: “Design your code to be easily deleted”.

Virtually every principle, pattern, and practice in clean code, design patterns, and software architecture serves a common goal: drawing a dotted line around our component so future developers can easily cut along it, detach our module, discard it, and replace it with something better suited to the evolving needs of the system.

So, let’s not get too attached to our code. It’s not an asset, it’s a (hopefully temporary) liability. The best code isn’t the code that lasts forever. It’s the code that serves its purpose well and then gracefully makes way for something better.

Originally posted on LinkedIn.