Am I writing new code, or adding to old code? If I am adding to old code, is it my code which I already understand fully, or someone else's code which I have never seen before? Is it a 10 file project, or a 10 project solution?
Is the task clearly defined? Am I trying to satisfy a previously written set of unit tests or am I incrementally changing my impression of what the final product should be as I am writing the code?
Do I already know everything I need to know to write the code? Do I have to track people down to get explanations of how other system components work?
How delicate and mission critical is the code, and how careful do I have to be? Is what I am writing going to be interacting with a production environment where failure means hundred thousand dollar losses, or do I want to analyze some data files on my machine?
How easy to debug is the type of program I am writing? Are we talking about an application where I can step through the code locally and see the null pointer errors for myself, or are we talking about something that involves hard to trace floating point math and linear algebra?
And of course, how complex is the actual coding? Are we talking about parsing a few log files and throwing them in a database, or are we talking about a custom file system using never before implemented data compression and retrieval techniques?
Am I writing new code, or adding to old code? If I am adding to old code, is it my code which I already understand fully, or someone else's code which I have never seen before? Is it a 10 file project, or a 10 project solution?
Is the task clearly defined? Am I trying to satisfy a previously written set of unit tests or am I incrementally changing my impression of what the final product should be as I am writing the code?
Do I already know everything I need to know to write the code? Do I have to track people down to get explanations of how other system components work?
How delicate and mission critical is the code, and how careful do I have to be? Is what I am writing going to be interacting with a production environment where failure means hundred thousand dollar losses, or do I want to analyze some data files on my machine?
How easy to debug is the type of program I am writing? Are we talking about an application where I can step through the code locally and see the null pointer errors for myself, or are we talking about something that involves hard to trace floating point math and linear algebra?
And of course, how complex is the actual coding? Are we talking about parsing a few log files and throwing them in a database, or are we talking about a custom file system using never before implemented data compression and retrieval techniques?