Leave no Trace

A key quality metric, for test-driven development and for continuous integration, is stability. You must keep that build working, all the tests working, everything. The ideal version checkin is invisible, except that known bugs turn into new successes. This is quite a trial for the ego-driven programmer (and let's hope there is some other kind)! Recently I did a piece of toolset refactoring that could have been a disaster. All 200-odd developers, plus QA and admins, depended on this took daily. I worked and worked to keep thing stable - I kept wondering which Chuck Yeager scene I was in from The Right Stuff. Maybe it was the triumphant defeat of the sound barrier, the miraculous spin recovery after cracking the cockpit, or the rueful bailout with the burning flight suit. I committed the change and, whew! Nothing broke! It all still worked! And nobody noticed! My pride was shot! But that's how it should be. A well-structured and modular project in a continuous-integration regime rarely has the great triumphs, the glorious victory. It also doesn't have the anxious panic of the do-or-die deadline. Thank God for it. The best approach follows the Boy Scout standard: Leave No Trace. So knuckle down, shut up, get the job done and do it imperceptibly, and ditch your ego. And if you succeed at that last one, please let the rest of us know how!