When you have something like
// connect to database
code
code
code
This might be an indicator that you can extract the code under the comment into a separate method to make things clearer and more modular.
I whipped together a quick video to somewhat explain this idea.
video platform video management video solutions video player
Title: Managing the Design Factory Author: Donald Reinertsen Length: 288 pages Published: 1997 ISBN-10: 0684839911 ISBN-13: 9780684839912
This book analyzes product development processes from a lean perspective. The author starts by introducing the concept of a "design factory", which shows the differences between lean principles applied to manufacturing and lean principles applied to creating new innovations. The key differences include information arrival processes and the repeatable versus non-repeatable.
This is an idea that I read about in Managing the Design Factory (detailed outline). Around page 226, Reinertsen says:
Let us start with the first source of technical risk, the high-risk subsystem. Which subsystems have high technical risk? To assess this we must perform our project-level analysis to determine how each program objective (expense, cost, performance, and speed) will impact profits. Then we assess each subsystem to determine how it might impact each of these factors. The easiest way to do this is to use a team meeting in which members estimate the downside risk for each subsystem in terms of magnitude and probability. This can be done by having each member assess risks independently, having a discussion on why different team members have rated risk differently, and then having team members reassess risks. The output of such a meeting is a surprisingly good understanding of project risk. Contrary to the common view that unknown risks are most important, most teams are surprisingly aware of where they are likely to fail in a program.
On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
In the long run, every signal dies. Paper rots, genes mutate, forests burn, files corrupt. Error correcting codes help, but they aren't enough. Perfect preservation of effort is not the way of the universe. Human languages evolve and break down meaning.
Will my personal journal be lost in an accident following the poisson distribution within my lifetime? Will my grandchildren care enough to translate my life's work to the technology of the day before it is unreadable? There is a difference between preservation and the ability to understand, as Robert Scoble points out.