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Aleksandar Gosevski

Finding balance - The art of practical programming

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You know what I’ve noticed after years of coding? We developers are kind of funny. We always want to write perfect code - you know, the type that would make our future selves proud. But real life isn’t that simple. Sometimes we need to get things done quickly, other times we need to work with what we have. And honestly? That’s completely okay. It took me a while to learn this lesson, and I want to share my experience with you.

Learning from a Legacy Project

I had to work on this really old project - it was about ten years old and had dozens of different developers working on it over the years. It was built using the Zend PHP framework, and when I first opened the template files, I found a complete mess of script and style tags scattered everywhere. You know that feeling when you open old code and just want to close it immediately? Yeah, that was me.

At first, I thought, “Oh boy, what have I gotten myself into?” But something interesting happened. As I spent more time with this messy but working code, I actually started enjoying it. Why? Because we knew a complete rewrite was coming soon. This gave us the freedom to focus on making things work rather than making them perfect. Plus, having all the code in one place - even if it wasn’t the prettiest - made it surprisingly easy to understand how everything worked together.

The Reality Check

As programmers, we often dream of writing perfect code. You know the kind - neatly organized, flexible, and ready for any future changes. But here’s the truth: many apps we build either get abandoned or sit untouched for years.

When we do come back to old projects, three things usually happen:

  1. We cringe at our old coding style (like looking at old Facebook photos)
  2. We realize how much we’ve learned since then
  3. We discover that the tools we used are now as outdated as flip phones

Finding Your Sweet Spot

So, what’s the lesson here? Should we just write messy code because “it works”? Not exactly. The key is finding balance.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

  • If a task is simple, keep it simple. Don’t turn a garden shed into a skyscraper
  • Don’t solve problems you don’t have yet
  • Focus on making your code work well today while keeping tomorrow in mind

Remember, good code isn’t about showing off how clever you are. It’s about solving real problems in a way that helps both your users and fellow developers. Sometimes, the simplest solution is the best one.