I spent most of the day debugging a component that was horribly written. The logic was so hard to follow that even figuring out where to drop a console.log took longer than it should have. Naming? Passable. File structure? There, but barely logical.
The worst part?
I wrote that component.
Yep. No one else to blame. No angry hand-off. No eye-roll at another developer's chaos. Just me, my own past decisions, and a long day of regret.
How We Got Here
The component wasn’t critical. Just a secondary UI feature that adds a nice touch to the user experience. But under the hood, it had a fair amount of complexity—it changed behavior based on the page context and user-selected options. Routing, state management, dynamic population—it all worked smoothly. And that, oddly enough, was part of the problem.
I remember shipping it in a rush. It wasn’t high priority, and we were sneaking it into a small release. I didn’t skip testing or break anything—it worked fine. I just didn’t take the time to polish the code, restructure it properly, or document it clearly.
For months, it just worked. Too well, maybe.
Then we decided to extend its capabilities—cover more use cases, more interaction types. Seemed easy. But the moment I opened the file, I regretted every decision I had made.
Three Big Mistakes
Poor Structure – I hadn’t properly split the component into smaller files. Logic and layout were tangled. No clear separation of concerns. It took forever to reorient myself.
No Documentation – I’m not a fan of over-commenting every line, but even a few notes around complex logic or helper functions would’ve saved me serious time. When you’re working in a small team without robust docs, even basic comments go a long way.
No Tests – Nothing in place to catch regressions. Once I finally added the new feature, it broke some edge cases I had long forgotten. In hindsight, setting up a few Jest tests would’ve taken less time than debugging the fallout.
It Worked Out—But It Shouldn’t Have Been This Hard
Eventually, I got back into the headspace I had when I originally wrote the logic. I cleaned up the structure, added the new features, fixed the bugs, and shipped a better version of the component. It’s all good now.
But it didn’t have to be this stressful.
And this time, it was me fixing my own mess. Imagine if a teammate had inherited this? It would’ve been frustrating and demotivating.
Leave the Codebase Better Than You Found It
Yes, documentation and clean code are best practices. But they’re also about respect—for your future self and for your team. Passing along your code should be like handing over a baton in a relay. It should feel smooth, obvious, and friction-free.
So next time you finish something—even a small, seemingly unimportant component—take a few minutes to clean up. Add a helpful comment. Write a test or two. You’ll thank yourself later, and your team will thank you too.
Okay, break’s over. Back to your code—and this time, clean it up properly.