“that is the right wrong thing to do.”

that’s what a co-worker of mine said today when i asked him about a design decision on a project that i’m working on. basically, i’m extending an existing application and there’s a lot of code that’s already out there that’s doing a bunch of “stuff.” now, the right thing to do is write very streamlined code and get rid of everything that isn’t necessary. but because of time considerations it seems that everyone is in agreement that the right thing to do is not necessarily the right way to do things, but is right given the circumstances.

my first inclination was to do the wrong thing, acknowledge that you did the wrong thing, and then move on. i just felt bad that i wasn’t doing it the right way…but now that i’ve gotten some affirmation that i’m doing this ok, it’s time to just plow through and keep doing the wrong thing.

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