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Cesar Aguirre
Cesar Aguirre

Posted on • Edited on • Originally published at canro91.github.io

1

Once You Touch It, You Own It!

"You only have to add your changes to this existing component. It's already working."

That was what our Product Owner told my team and me.

I bet you have heard that, too.

I was working for a past client and we needed to extend an existing feature.

We had to import an Excel file with a list of guests into a group event. Think of importing all the guests to a wedding reception at a hotel.

After finishing our task, the next thing we knew was that the "already-working" component had issues. The original team was laid off, and we couldn't get our questions answered or count on them to fix those issues.

What was a simple coding task turned out to be a longer one. Weeks later, we were still fixing existing issues.

Here's the lesson:

Before starting to work on top of an "already-working" feature: test it and give a list of existing issues.

Otherwise, those existing issues will appear as bugs in your changes. And people will start asking questions:

"Why are you taking so much time on this? It's a simple task. It was already working."

In my hometown, we have a saying: "Break old, pay new."

Lesson learned! Once you touch it, you own it!


Join my free 7-day email course to refactor your software engineering career now.

Happy coding!

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