Beyond the Code: Good Systems are Raised, Not Just Written
The 6-Month-Old Puppy Principle
I’ve spent a lot of time lately training my dog. He’s been with us for four months now, barely six months old, and our days are filled with the basics: sit, lie down, paw. But we’re also working on the harder stuff—patience, not jumping on strangers, and walking perfectly by my side.
While I’m out there in the street with a pocket full of treats, I can’t help but think about my day job. Because, more and more, I’ve realized that code is a living being.
If you want your system to respond to commands, scale without breaking, and "behave" during an upgrade, you have to start with the foundations. You cannot start with lazy, undisciplined code and expect it to magically transform into an amazing system later.
It’s Not Just Code—It’s the Environment
"Training" a system isn't just about the lines of code you write. It’s about the culture and procedures you build around it. It’s how you treat your tickets, your branches, and your PRs.
We have the technical guidelines that can change a little from language to language or event between the Frontend and Backend but will also follow some layer segregation, naming conventions, encapsulation and we follow them because they are the "basic tricks" of our trade. But a healthy system requires a healthy "home life" (the ecosystem) and this time, that is our subject.
The Rules of the "House"
To keep a codebase from growing into a mess, there are three non-negotiable behaviors every team needs to master:
1. Know the Map (Granular Backlog) You must know where you are and where you are going. First of all you need to have this clear and wheel documented, a backlog shouldn't just be a high-level dream; it needs to be granular enough to represent every step of the journey. If you can’t define the step, you shouldn’t be taking it.
2. Stop the "Multi-task" Myth (WIP Limits) When you pick a task, you finish that task. Period. Unless there is a massive emergency happening that can not be delayed, having 10 tasks "In Progress" at once is just organized chaos. Humans aren't built for that kind of context switching, and neither are project timelines. Do it, do it properly, and get it to "Done."
3. Maintain Branch Hygiene This is where most teams lose control. If your task changes the code, you open a branch, you commit, you get it reviewed, and you merge.
The Golden Rule: Once a PR is approved, it must be merged. Once it’s merged, the branch must be deleted.
If you have dozens of open branches, you aren't building a system; you’re building a "Merge Hell." If you let this slide for months, you’ll eventually need a full week just to stabilize your master branch.
Training for the Future
These rules need to be learned from Day 1. If a team doesn't learn these "basic tricks," the system grows into a terrible mess that is impossible to navigate. You end up with a team that is lost in the middle of dozens of simultaneous tasks, doing "crazy rebases" just to move an inch forward, incapable of learning anything new because they are too busy fighting the old.
If you want a nice system to work with, don’t forget to take care of it from the scratch. Make it grow strong, smart, and disciplined enough to adapt when the world changes.
Take care of your code today, so it can take care of you tomorrow.
