The Obsession With Speed

Vedant Patel — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 14:24:04 +0000

When I started coding, I thought one thing mattered the most:

“The faster I write code, the better developer I am.”

So I optimized everything for speed:

And honestly… it felt productive.

Until it wasn’t.

The Hidden Cost of Writing Code Too Fast

Here’s what started happening:

1. Bugs Increased
Fast code = careless mistakes

I spent more time debugging than building.

2. Code Became Unreadable
Even I couldn’t understand my own code after 2 days 😅

3. No Real Understanding
I was solving problems… without actually learning.

4. Refactoring Became a Nightmare
Every “quick solution” became technical debt.

🧠 What I Realized

Speed ≠ Productivity

Writing code fast is easy. Writing good code fast is hard.

What I Changed

Instead of focusing on speed, I focused on:

✅** Thinking before coding**
Even 2–3 minutes of planning saved hours later.

✅ Writing cleaner logic
Readable > clever

✅ Understanding over copying
StackOverflow is a tool, not a shortcut.

✅** Measuring complexity**
This was a game-changer.

🛠️ The Turning Point

I realized I needed a way to measure how complex my code was getting.

So I built a small VS Code extension to help me with that 👇

👉 It shows code complexity directly inside your editor

👉 Helps identify messy functions early

👉 Makes refactoring easier

🔗 Check it out

If you’re facing similar issues, this might help:

🎯 Final Thought

Don’t aim to write code fast.

Aim to write code you won’t hate tomorrow.

If you relate to this, let me know 👇

Would love to hear your experience!

DEV Community: Vedant Patel