de tomKronieken

Last Friday, I had to add some extra features on a project that was finished some months ago. I wasn't too keen on doing this: trashing around in code that has a fairly complex structure is usually asking for trouble. But guess what: I liked it. And I liked it for 2 reasons:

• I spent time on refactoring that code before I left it. It paid of last Friday. The only thing I had to do was adapt an interface. XP, you rule!
• The second one, and this is actually the point I want to make: I've been working on the same project for some months now, and it was very refreshing to put my mind on something else again (and for longer than half an hour in the evening). Now, I don't know if it is a general accepted feeling among programmers, but this certainly goes for me: variation keeps the mind fresh. The pain is, that most programmers have to work for months on a stretch on the same thing, after which they're reassigned to the following project, which again is the same stuff for months. Programmers are humans, not machines, and should be allowed variation in their work.

Of course, not all programmers are like me (I hope), and few things are more frustrating than a failed project that keeps haunting you, but getting to work on several interesting projects at the same time would surely improve my efficiency.