I wasted almost five hours of my life this morning because of the (what I consider to be) poor choices of the person in my position before me.
Five hours of playing IT-for-free when I could have been doing my "real" job building a billable web project.
Five hours of learning about something that, although related to my day-to-day, doesn't serve me as much more than a tertiary bullet point on the laundry list of my career goals.
Five hours that skewed the day so badly it was hard to accomplish anything relevant in the afternoon.
Five hours of pain I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Not even that person-before-me who ultimately made today possible.
And while I'd like to discuss all the events that led to today's debacle - I'm focusing my first Don't Be Stupid Tuesday post on what I think is the most important point of the lot because I think it's the easiest to accomplish. And, that's the importance of appropriately documenting your project for future reference and maintentance, whether its for you or whoever comes along to take care of it next.
This isn't the same-forever-only-2-people-know Coke Secret Formula. This is a live build that real, normal people need to use in every day situations. It needs to be adaptable, fixable, and understandable. I shouldn't even have to say this, but the number of issues I hit with things I didn't build - issues that would have been moot with the right notation - issues that are
normal concerns of someone in my position, managing the care of 100+ sites, and building new constantly ...I don't know how to stress the importance of taking that little extra time to DOCUMENT YOUR SHIT.
Comment your code. Provide a README or similar notation. Tell someone else where you keep your list of passwords. I'm not saying publish it to your Facebook - be smart about it. And whatever it is, consider the person that may be fixing it later: a PHP file may need some commentary to suit another developer, but a mail server may need some direction in layman's terms in case the IT is out of the office.
Point is, whatever you've put together, you're not going to be there forever to take care of it. And even if you are, who's to say there won't be a day some catastrophe hits and you're not there to troubleshoot, or maybe 3 years go by and you plumb forget what you did in the first place. It happens.
I mentioned earlier that this was the easiest to avoid of all the causes of today's mess-i-wouldn't-wish-on-anyone, and I stand by that statement. Stop leaning on excuses, and start breaking the bad habits.
I'm not just asking for my own sake as the "person that fills your shoes next." Do it for your development as a professional. As someone who cares about being a Senior This, a Lead That, or simply a hard worker who is seen as a competent, accountable
whatever you are. I know when you stop and think about it, you'd hate to be in my shoes: wasting time, keystrokes, and sanity on things that could, and more importantly SHOULD, be much less stressful.
I'm even willing to bet you've already been there once or twice before.
