Refactoring and minimal examples
2025-12-06 21:53:17 +01:00 by Mark Smith
Usually when you are writing software it’s good idea to start small and build up. When things are complex, there are just too many things that can go wrong, and they inevitably do.
But sometimes even when you do diligently do that, you get into trouble because the platform you were building on is inconsistent or missing a key feature, or behaves in a non-intuitive way. You thought you knew how it worked but it turns out that the way you thought it worked was not the full picture.
In these times, things get very confusing, you find yourself going around in circles, and it can get quite gnarly, because you are changing things here…
Refactoring and minimal examples
2025-12-06 21:53:17 +01:00 by Mark Smith
Usually when you are writing software it’s good idea to start small and build up. When things are complex, there are just too many things that can go wrong, and they inevitably do.
But sometimes even when you do diligently do that, you get into trouble because the platform you were building on is inconsistent or missing a key feature, or behaves in a non-intuitive way. You thought you knew how it worked but it turns out that the way you thought it worked was not the full picture.
In these times, things get very confusing, you find yourself going around in circles, and it can get quite gnarly, because you are changing things here and there trying to debug things. And one thing leads to another thing, and the AI you are working with takes you down a ridiculous route that was totally unnecessary.
At some point you decide that you need to start again from scratch. Rebuilding the absolute most minimal example of the thing you are trying to solve. It’s a bit of an art. It can seem like a total pain, but it’s often much much faster the second time around, once you have figured out the solution to the problem that is.
And it can happen several times that you think you have figured it out, when actually you hadn’t quite. It’s a bit like one of those dreams where you wake up and then a bit later, you wake up again. Oh it was a dream in a dream in a dream!
Each time you get a bit closer, and a bit more certain you really have figured it out, because you understand the problem space much better than before. And it feels good.
But there is always the possibility you missed something.
I think I have the social media auto-poster figured out. It’s running on the blog now, and so at some point this evening after the daily build runs, hopefully this post will get published to some of my socials medias. #