Is your code good enough?

Do you worry about the quality of your code? Are you afraid of writing bad code? If someone reads your code and they say it sucks, how would it make you feel?

Would you feel like shit?

Stop tying your self-worth to your code

If you feel like shit, it’s proof that you’re tying your self-worth to the quality of your code.

Self worth and code quality are two different things. Don’t mix them up. Don’t let your self worth be governed by the quality of your code.

Learn to have fun and take things lightly. You do better work when you’re having fun.

If you code sucks, that’s fine, because you can get better overtime.

There is no perfect code

Messy code that works is better than clean code that doesn’t work.

Focus on making your code work first. Don’t worry about the final outcome. Have fun getting your hands dirty, creating things, and figuring things out.

You start the cleanup process only when the code works exactly like what you wanted to. This is called refactoring. It’s a process of organizing code.

Creation and organization are different processes. You don’t have the answers when you create, so it’s always going to be messy. Learn to live with the mess. Learn to have fun with the mess.

In organization mode (refactoring), we clean code up. We make it easy to read, easy to maintain, easy to make changes; we even want to make it pretty!

When you start out, don’t create and organize at the same time. You’ll get stuck. Always focus on creation first. Refactor only when you’re done creating.

When you get better, you might be able to do creation and organization together. But that takes a lot of work.

Trust the process

Create first. Then organize.

Focus on making things work. Don’t worry about the perfect code; you can always clean up later. Have fun. You’ll get better overtime.