[javajosh]

It doesn't take much! A shoe in the middle of a hallway makes it slightly more trouble to move past without tripping, or a box under a desk makes it slightly harder to vacuum. Over the course of cleaning, each time you think about something like that is a small source of stress that makes the task less pleasant.

It's the same thing in a codebase. If your functions mutate arguments, even a little, or if the code is not formatted consistently, the resistance to movement increases, and tasks become less pleasant. If you wait for real spaghetti code it's already too late; if you're used to chaotic code, you won't understand what I'm talking about.

[roryisok]

It's sort of like test driven vacuuming ;)

I love the comparison to codebases. I just wish I could commit the perfect tidy version of the room to a git repo and then reset to that every night. :)