We’ve all heard that the mark of a senior engineer is answering every question with “It depends…” but I’d like to introduce you to another one of my favorites that has been the theme of my day today:

“Wait, so how did this ever work?”

It’s acknowledging that it did work at one time and you are realizing that you don’t understand how. Instead of forging ahead to “fix” it, you should go back and learn how it used to work first so that you know what to do. #cosocode