I think the whole "learn by failing fast" thing is overhyped in programming

Been coding for about 8 years now, mostly backend stuff in Python and Java. Every blog post and podcast keeps saying fail fast, iterate quick, learn from your mistakes. But I've seen way too many junior devs at my company in Austin adopt that mindset and ship broken code that takes the senior team days to untangle. Last month a guy pushed a PR with a null pointer that brought down our staging environment for 6 hours because he was "iterating fast." I think the real skill is learning to think before you code, catch your own mistakes before they hit a review. Am I the only one who feels like we're teaching bad habits?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencer_coleman8d ago

Failing fast just means the seniors catch it, the juniors never learn to think.

blair_taylor328d ago

Pairing junior devs with seniors on the initial attempt lets them see the reasoning behind the decision, not just the fix. After that, let them run the next failure solo but have the senior nearby to discuss the outcome after. It slows down the cycle but builds the ability to catch issues on their own eventually.

charles_mitchell6d ago

Fair point but @spencer_coleman has a solid take here too.