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The importance of good preparation work

This weekend I have been working on our staircase at home. The previous owners re-painted the staircase before they moved out. Unfortunately they "forgot" to do the preparation work properly so now the paint is flaking and looks terrible.

Just as important as preparing before you paint is preparing your software before adding new functionality to it.

When you are planning to add a new feature take a moment and ask yourself if your code is ready for it. The first coding task should be to ensure the new functionality fits well into the structure of the part of the code that is affected. There is a big possibility that some restructuring of the code is needed before it can be extended in a good way. Doing this will help you keep the code in a good condition. You don't want code that looks terrible and needs to be stripped down completely and "repainted, do you?

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