I read a quote today attributed to the United States President Abraham Lincoln. It reads, “If I had 6 hours to cut down a tree, I would spend 4 hours sharpening the axe.” If you have never cut down a tree before using an axe, this is great advice.
I was a lumberjack decades ago. I used the money to help pay for my college education. I would start out the day first tuning up my chainsaw, making sure the chain was as sharp as I could get it, and assuring everything I could do to keep it operational was completed. I was paid per tree I processed; so, if my chainsaw didn’t work, or worked poorly, my profit suffered.
I find the concept transferrable to writing software. When your tools are sharp, you produce usable code much more quickly. That code is less prone to bugs. And people take notice. I would say that the individual or team, who can write the best code, in the shortest amount of time, with the least amount of bugs, meeting the needs of the business, will carry a great deal of influence in any company.
So, how do we sharpen our axe? What are the activities leading to successful projects with a given timeline? That will be the topic of my editorials for the rest of this week. Perhaps you’d like to recommend your preferences now, helping to direct the conversation. You can leave comments here, or drop an Email to btaylor@sswug.org. If you share by email your response will be posted in a later editorial, with attribution to your first name.
Cheers,
Ben