Have you ever left something too long? The laundry pile gets larger and larger. Every day you look at it and think “why didn’t I do the damn laundry last week?”.
Once when that happened we put everything in a bad and dropped it off at the laundrette (which was literally at the end of the road in London). A few quid later, and we came back to nicely packaged, folded, clothes. Money well spent.
The same effect has happened with refactoring code on projects. You run into the “I don’t have time to refactor this right now, we need to move on and finish the next feature”. You would think that we have learned. Building on a foundation that is a house of cards. Knowing how much more work it means for the future. But we still haven’t always learned.
I am trying really hard to run a wash as soon as the laundry basket is full. And, I am trying hard to refactor my code on the spot, and not let time go by. Keep wishing me luck :)
