Say ‘No” to the ‘Bugs”

Jack Welch in the book ‘Winning” said: ‘Prevention is by no means a perfect science, but it’s your first line of defense against a crisis. Don’t rely on hard experience to build your immunity’ unless you have to.”

That’s great advice for anyone and even better for a programmer. In programming, a little bug can cause a big problem, even crisis sometimes.

Some of the lessons I’ve learned:

1) Test fully and test everything related, not just the part updated.

2) Avoid pushing out code to sites in the last minute of a Friday afternoon if possible. Sometimes it’s tempting, but it’s better to wait until a Monday.   So you’re around if anything happens.

3) Document or comment the code adequately. Well documented code helps to reduce bugs, especially for the code used far less common.

And it helps to have super rock support stars who act quickly!