Development Updates
DU-002
Nothing Shipped, and That Was the Update
A week spent reading instead of writing
Status
No release
No feature reached anyone this week. The work was reading what already existed and writing down why it was built that way, which produced no visible change and prevented three.
What Was Done
The week was spent reading code that already worked and writing down the reasons behind it — reasons that had been carried in someone's head and were one absence away from being lost.
What It Prevented
Three changes were proposed at the start of the week. All three were dropped once the reason behind the existing behaviour was written down, because in each case the existing behaviour was already the answer to a question the proposal had not asked.
Why It Is Recorded
A week with no release looks identical to a week with no work, and the two are not the same. The only difference visible from outside is this entry.
| Proposed | Dropped because |
|---|---|
| Simplify the ordering rule | The rule encodes a decision, not an accident |
| Merge two near-identical views | They are deliberately separate |
| Remove an unused-looking guard | It is load-bearing, and now says so |
“The fastest change is the one that gets argued out of existence before it is written.”
Studio note, same week
Weeks like this are the ones a log is for. Everything else is visible in the product already.
Update Scope
- Period
- One week.
- Surface
- None. Nothing reached a reader.
- Shipped
- Nothing.
- Held back
- Three changes, permanently.