Tech teams grow, developers leave, others join and the cycle continues as long as a company is alive. Codebases will always change hands. In a way, that is good because different minds can make it better… or destroy it. My job has mainly included building new features and debugging already existing features that have been built by other developers before me. I find myself enjoying the former more than I do the latter. Why? Sometimes it’s easy to spot a problem, that could take a few hours give or take, but other times it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack and that takes days, or even weeks. The bug may not be obvious enough to spot fast or the code may have been written poorly or too advancedly. In other words, not getting the other developer’s thought process while implementing their logic is frustrating. And the best part is, they aren’t there for you to ask them. :/

Teams are the best solution

The good thing with working in a team is that you can ask for help, brainstorm and have one or two or three extra pair of eyes to help you spot the problem. It gets it solved faster and you always get more than one idea for a solution. 

Be better

Write code that can be interpreted by other developers; newbies or pros. It’s a good habit to develop and it makes you a pretty impressive developer especially if you intend your work to be out there. Think about the person who will read it.

How?

Create personal projects and share them on github, accept critique from fellow developer co-workers, and critique their work as well. Positive critique obviously and  keep practicing to be better than the previous day. Know that you are not the only person who will interact with your code.

Conclusion

I am slowly learning to enjoy this particular part of my job, because, well, it’s part of the job. I miss deadlines sometimes, especially if my tasks involve this particular debugging, but not letting the frustration get to me is a huge character development exercise on my part. Besides, solving the problem in the end is always so rewarding especially because I know my users will have an easier time. That’s something that I look forward to despite all the hair pulling and silent cusses.