Since code is the visible evidence of an invisible and intangible design, many companies launch into coding too soon. Just last year, one of our clients retained another company to develop a product for them. Because of a tight schedule, the company's engineers were coding before any design work was done. All of the expected results of such efforts were reaped. And it's not over yet!

At MicroTools, we recognize the temptation to "just start coding." Partly, because we've done it ourselves. Partly, because as developers, we find it is the most satisfying part of the project. But we also recognize the pitfalls and enforce a disciplined rigor on all our development projects. Sometimes it feels like we are holding back a team of wild horses, but it must be done.

Two other important parts of the code that MicroTools could be developing for your company.

We believe in self documenting code. Easy to say. Hard to do. But again, we find it is worth it. Too often we have come back to our own code (not even speaking about someone else's code) - and say "What does this do?"

Second, we like to practice peer review and code walkthroughs where ever possible. This helps not only in improving the documentation of the code, but even more important, helps find bugs before they hit the field.