Sometimes a developer or organization will consider their code to be valuable. Is code valuable? I don’t think so. Code is a reusable and disposable resource. It’s also a liability.

A liability?

Yes because when you write code and it solves a problem, it is useful. But once the problem changes, it’s just bytes. And believe me, the problem will change. Then you’ve got more bytes to maintain. Code then is a liability and the longer it sticks around the more drag you’re creating on the future.

What if you spent a non insignificant amount of time writing code only to discover the problem you were solving has changed? Well hopefully if you’re leveraging an agile methodology that time period will be small, but if it’s not you’ve got to be able to throw away your work entirely. It’s easy to get attached to code that you’ve written and want to try and take it along with you like a boat anchor but you must be able to dump your code without a second thought when it’s no longer useful.

Recognize when code is adding value and when it needs to be taken out back of the shed. It’s not your code. It’s the code. Make sure it isn’t a liability.