| > But you have to ship in 4 weeks, so why not just get something working first? If you do that, after the deadline is over, you will get assigned another task with another 4-week deadline. And then another. The code will get increasingly complex until you can't keep with it any more. And then you will leave the company, or they will fire you. And the people who gave you that deadline will refer to you as "the guy who left that horrible mess of code". I decided long ago that that's not how I want to live my life. If someone gives me an unreasonable deadline, I negotiate it. Hard. By explaining the problems, and making sure everyone understands the tradeoffs being made. And if the deadline is really immovable, I negotiate a period to refactor after the deadline is passed, and in which I am not assigned other tasks. And if that is not possible, then I start looking for another job. Fortunately now it's a great time to be a programmer. But hey, if that works for you, then great. To each his own. |