Oliver Davies
f4d5514a8b
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Don't make assumptions
39 lines
1.2 KiB
Markdown
39 lines
1.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Don't make assumptions
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date: 2025-01-08
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permalink: daily/2025/01/08/don-t-make-assumptions
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tags:
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- software-development
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cta: call
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snippet: |
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I recently caught myself making assumptions and creating new requirements in a codebase that no-one asked for.
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---
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I was recently writing code for a project and found myself making assumptions about what I was writing.
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I was creating my own requirements.
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Something no-one asked for.
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I was assuming a value was always going to be a certain number of digits long.
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I was writing code that verified this was true or throw an Exception.
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Until I found out that that one of the values wasn't the same length as the others.
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This could be an error in the data or it could correct.
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No-one told me the lengths were always going to be the same.
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So why was I checking it?
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Why was I adding bugs to the code?
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I've reverted the code that checks the length of the value and gone to find clarification.
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If it's an issue, it'll be fixed in the source data.
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If the lengths should all be the same, I'll potentially re-add the check.
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Until I'm sure, I'll only write what's needed to deliver the feature and stop adding my own requirements and assumptions.
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