Always ask why?

Dec 1, 2019

Why? That’s a good question. The power of “Why?” in not only software design but also the general understanding of a domain.

I have seen lot of engineers who are early in their career, focus too much on getting something done, building the whole thing but the more senior folks take a step back and ask the most important question, why? Why do we need this feature? Why do we need to build this?

Asking why, has an important role to play in understanding requirements and remove any vague contradictions or assumptions that we have. By asking why we can be more persistent in digging into a problem space and getting to the actual requirements.

Why does the system work in this way? Because that’s the way we’ve always done it is not what we should settle for either.

Try to ask the right questions, get to the actual requirements and build things that matter. Solve the problems because you understand the domain better by asking the right questions.