| >How many ninja stunts have you seen without hundreds of bugs and being easily integrated into existing stuff and not requiring to change many existing things because they don't fit anymore with the genius code (and thus replacing well tested bits with alpha quality code)? I am familiar with the stereotype you're referencing, and have seen it from myself and others. However, to genuinely answer your question of "how many ninja stunts have you seen without hundreds of bugs..." I must answer: Many. For the first 3 years of my company's life, I a full half of the code was done as "late night ninja coding". In between getting steady work done, I would often think about a few harder problems/features/projects, and take notes from those thoughts over a few days/weeks,on what would be the best method of accomplishing said problem/feature/project. I called it the "think twice, code once" mentality. Eventually it would culminate (almost always in the evening) when I would either realize one last detail that made it all click, or realize that there was nothing left to plan out, and it was time to dig in and code. Cue an overnight session where all of that planning would be brought into reality. With tests. Even now, when my lifestyle and product allows for less of this, I still do so occasionally and it brings me great joy, significant productivity and very few bugs. Think twice, code once, and of course YMMV. |