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“It’s NOT working!”
Dev: 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘧𝘪𝘹
“It’s broken AGAIN!”
Dev: 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘧𝘪𝘹
And so the cycle continues…
Quick fixes feel fast, but they pile up technical debt.
The cost? Bugs resurface, systems become fragile, and development slows to a crawl.
The real fix? Invest in proper testing, refactoring, and root-cause analysis.
Short-term speed without long-term stability is just a trap.
Duplicated Validation Logic backfires
Developer copies the same validation logic for user input across multiple services.
Later, a requirement changes - like email format validation.
Now every copy must be updated individually. Miss one, and suddenly some parts of the system break while others work, causing unpredictable bugs and slowing down future development.
Copy-Paste SQL risk
Developer quickly writes a database query in one module, then copies it to another module without abstracting it.
Later, the database schema changes.
Each duplicated query needs manual updates. Missing one leads to runtime errors in production.
UI: change once, fix everywhere
A UI component is copy-pasted across different screens to save time.
A minor style or behavior change is needed later.
Because it’s duplicated, updating every instance is tedious, error-prone, and inconsistent.
Inconsistent Logs, Frustrated Devs
Logging or error-handling code is duplicated across microservices to speed up delivery.
Later, you need to standardize logs for monitoring.
Updating each copy individually takes hours and risks missing some, making debugging harder.
Quick fixes now create slowdowns later.
Problem: Teams take shortcuts to deliver quickly, but the messy code accumulates and slows future work.
What happened: Copy-pasted code spreads bugs or makes the system hard to change without breaking things.
Solution: Invest in small, incremental improvements - refactor duplicated code, add tests, and build maintainable patterns. It slows you down a little now, but prevents hours of frustration later.
Urgent bug fixes vs. refactoring
Firstly introduce Acceptance Tests (with no refactoring) so that we have protection that we don’t introduce User-facing regression bugs.
Then add lower-level tests (Component Tests, Unit Tests…).
Then start refactoring.
Allocate a small portion of time to it initially. Over time incrementally increase test coverage & refactoring. That way, it’s easier to get management buy-in.
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