Most developers I know are eager to dive into code. Honestly, I am, too! There's something satisfying about building solutions, seeing immediate results, and having tangible commits to show for your time. But over the years, I've learned that some of the most valuable work happens outside of the IDE.
Recently, I received a ticket to fix a "bug" where tax calculations were incorrect on invoices. The obvious move would’ve been to tweak the tax logic, maybe add some conditional statements and patch it quickly. Instead, I paused and spent a little time tracing the data flow. Stepping through the frontend display, the server-side API code, down to the mainframe data imports.
That day, I discovered that the app wasn't broken at all. It was correctly calculating tax based on the data it received. The real issue was a single incorrect value in the client's mainframe system. The fix? A simple data update on their end. No code required.
This kind of discovery work doesn't generate impressive pull requests or flashy demos. But it protected the client’s development budget for features that really mattered, and prevented us from building a workaround that would have masked the real problem.
I've found that taking discovery seriously, even when it doesn't generate code, often produces more value. It's detective work that pays dividends in time saved, technical debt avoided, and clients who trust that you're solving their real problems, not just the symptoms they present.
The best developers I know aren't just good at writing code. They're good at knowing when not to write it at all.
What are your thoughts? Have you ever “developed” a solution by writing no code at all?
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