Joseph Brower

First…

Documentation is vital!  I’ve been working with a company doing design work and they wanted me to help them with some development.  It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to reuse much of their current codebase.  It isn’t really that the code is bad, just that the code isn’t documented, and as a result, it will take a long time to figure out what exactly is going on.  This is for a company that has been waiting many months to get this development done and now their current developer is having a hard time finishing since nothing is really well documented. I always tell people to document like they have a one day memory, and that usually does the trick.

Second…

Documentation is vital! The same developer from before doesn’t appear to have any documentation regarding the project, its scope, flow, time constraints, or quality required.  I don’t care how good your memory is, please remember to document what it is you are trying to do and why the client has you doing it (at the very least.)  Even better is to have mind maps made of the scope, and UML diagrams made of each use case, information flow, and program interaction with third party applications.

Finally…

Documentation is vital! Try to keep notes regarding what hangups you’ve had and what things have proven more difficult than were originally anticipated, and let your client know as soon as you know.  This way the client is actually kept in the loop and doesn’t sit for months trying to figure out where their application is and what the hang up appears to be.

Sorry for all of the ranting, but there are a lot of good developers that could be great if they just understood why documentation is important.