Mar 13 2008 at 9:08am

When you can’t just start over, revisited

A few months ago I wrote about the frustrations involved with working with someone else’s outdated code. 37 Signals has a similar post today:

Here’s something I don’t say often: Suck It Up. If you work on more than a few projects, they can’t all smell like today’s fresh linens. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad programmer. It simply means that you’re prioritizing.

And I think that’s something that goes for any type of project. There’s rarely enough time or money to make everything perfect, whether it be a programming project at work or the paint job in the dining room. You have to find the point of balance and decide when it’s worth it to put in the extra time and/or money. Does this really matter in the big picture?

This can be a difficult thing to get over and, as a perfectionist, I know I often spend time on things that don’t matter that much.

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2 Responses to “When you can’t just start over, revisited”

  1. Catarina March 30th, 2008 at 7:16 pm

    I know how you feel. Being a perfectionist as well, I always struggle to find that balance. I just finished redesigning my blog and I wanted it to be absolutely perfect before I revealed it to the public, but making it perfect would take a lot more time and I really needed a new look for my blog right now. So I compromised and decided to reveal the new design now and then slowly (trying to) make it perfect. It’s always hard for me to make a decision like this, but it’s also necessary to know when to stop doing something and move on to the next.

  2. Megan April 1st, 2008 at 11:16 am

    We’re doing that with our new design at twf and a padded cell too. There are lots of bits that aren’t quite right yet but we thought that we should just go with it rather than waiting forever until we have time to polish all the corners :)

    I’m starting to work on a new design for this site as well and I’ll probably end up doing the same thing. As much as I’d like everything to be perfect on the first go, it would just take way too long. It’ll probably take me ages to get something that’s even presentable in the first place!

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