Fix your code with an “On Notice” board

The above comes with thanks to the On Notice Generator, and my board re-iterates a lot of the guidance found on Miško Hevery’s blog. These are code patterns and anti-patterns that I’ve encountered on many projects and have strong feelings against. Some of these are actually on my Dead to Me board, but there wasn’t a online generator.

I think it’s a good habit to start on On Notice board for your project – a list of offending code that should be cleaned-up at some point. Often, these unsightly offenders are large and tightly woven into the fabric of our code so they’re not something that can be fixed in a single refactoring. But by placing these offences on a visible On Notice board, they become goals that can fuel future refactorings.

You might not be able to fix a problem in a single session, but you can add a 2 hour research task to your backlog to understand why it exists. The output of such task might be further research tasks or changes you could introduce to shrink their influence and eventually remove all together. Sometimes I bundle a bunch of these fixing tasks into a refactoring user story, or slip a few into a new feature if they’re related. Over time, the board clears up.

Don’t forget, while you’re making these changes, write a few tests while you’re at it.

Oh, regarding Gluten-free cookies… they look like cookies, but they are most definitely not.