Sniffing out success

Recently, I found myself discussing code smells with a colleague. How do you recognise them and how can you fix them? Reading about refactoring and design patterns is certainly one way to train your olfactory sensitivity. But study alone is not enough.

In a previous life I was an elite orienteer. When I was racing to the limits of my ability one of the key success factors was reacting to mistakes and correcting them before they caused time loss. A bit like fixing code smells really. Nipping small mistakes in the bud before they grow into major time wasters.

As an orienteer I learned early in my career that the key to perfecting this skill is training, training and training. I'm convinced this is also true for the programmer. Mastering the skill of sniffing out code smells and cleaning them up comes only with practice - lots of it.

And just like the very best athletes, you should never be really satisfied. Skills need to be maintained with constant training, and there's always always room for improvement.