Things I’d tell a junior me

I started writing code at 2am in my final year at art school, and I have made most of the available mistakes since. These are the things I would tell myself on day one, in roughly the order I learned them.

Ship the boring version first

The clever version can come later, and usually it doesn’t need to. Boring code is easy to read on a Friday afternoon, which is when you will need to read it.

Name things for the person who reads them in a year

That person is you, and you will have forgotten everything. handleClick2 is not a name. It is a cry for help.

Ask what the number is

Before you argue about whether something is slow, find out how slow. Half of design reviews are two people disagreeing about a number neither of them has measured.

Read the error message to the end

The answer is often in the last line, just after the part that frightened you.

Design the empty state first

Every list starts empty, every form starts blank and every new user has nothing yet. If that screen is good, the rest tends to follow.

You can say you don’t know yet

I still forget this one. “I don’t know yet, I’ll find out by Thursday” is a complete answer, and a better one than a confident guess you have to unpick on Friday.

And make the invoice editor stop jumping. You’ll see.