How to Decide if you Should Write a Program
As a developer, have you ever wondered if a program needs to be written? With the library of existing programs growing larger than ever, it is sometimes difficult to justify the need to write still another one. Especially when the need for a program may not be well understood in principle.
Like anyone that need to prioritize activities, I had to come up with a few guidelines to decide in which to spend time. Here are some of them:
Is anyone paying me to do this? Like it or not, this is the number one reason if you have to work for a company and you are not a decision maker. With luck, however, you can have a say on how the company will spend its efforts and the next reasons will apply. Also, you may be working on your own company or open source project.
Does it provide a feature that doesn’t yet exist? While it is tempting to write “yet another” program to do something that is well known, the benefits of doing this are small. This is a situation where you need to create something really better just not to be perceived as another copycat. While this might work if you have a lot of experience on the subject domain, why take an unnecessary risk? If I don’t have any really good idea to improve something, I just let it alone.
If the functionality exists, would it be much better than current options in some way like time, easy of use? This is the test you need to do whenever you are tempted to rewrite something. If you cannot convince yourself that it would be better for your users, don’t spend the time.
Rewrites of a program are dangerous. Keep in mind the second version syndrome, whereby developers try to improve the existing system in every conceivable way, just to learn that users don’t want it anymore. This is a particular case of trying to do too a perfect job: and you know, perfect jobs don’t exist.
Can you learn something from it? If I cannot convince myself that the program will be new or much better than the existing, then I ask if it will teach me something new. This is something that works particularly well for personal or open source projects: no wonder there are thousands of open source versions of every application. Most of them start as a vehicle for someone to learn about an application domain. Such projects frequently gain their own life and become something useful for others.
Has any commercial value? If you cannot learn anything new, it might still have commercial value. For example, it can complement a major product your company might have. This is the common case when a major product adds functionality that exists somewhere else, but that would still be useful to complement the original program. Be aware of the proliferation of features that can make your product harder to use and slower/buggier.
Is it fun to write? Some programs begin their life just as a way to have fun. Lots of developers have fun writing new compilers, editors, and similar system software. That’s why there are so many of them around. This is something that usually goes together with learning something new: developers having fun can be a very powerful force.
Will it help anyone? There are times when you don’t have any other reason to write a program other than helping someone to solve a problem (that someone can even be yourself). Sometimes you may be trying to help your wife, your brother, or your neighbor, with some functionality that would be easy to write yourself. My first suggestion is trying to find similar functionality somewhere else. But if you can’t, and it is easy, why not do it? This is one of the advantages of understanding how computers work, right?
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About the Author
Carlos Oliveira holds a PhD in Systems Engineering and Optimization from University of Florida. He works as a software engineer, with more than 10 years of experience in developing high performance, commercial and scientific applications in C++, Java, and Objective-C. His most Recent Book is Practical C++ Financial Programming.
