Day Six of Dailydose
I’ve wanted to keep a developer log for years. I always felt it would add a level of professionalism that’s often missing in day-to-day coding. Recently, using GPT to help prompt reflection points finally gave that idea some structure. Just a small bit of research and prompting unlocked something bigger: a habit of daily thinking, not just daily doing.
I call myself a software engineer rather than a developer or coder, because I hold myself to a professional standard. That includes clean code, testability, proper patterns, and yes, reflection. Whether or not you write a formal log, taking time to think about the decisions you made can uncover gaps and improve your work.
This isn’t about rewriting everything. It’s iteration. Maybe you used a dumb component where it made sense, wired up DTOs and facades, and just moved on. But when you revisit it, some names no longer make sense, or a pattern you used has evolved. It happens. That doesn’t mean the original code was wrong, but it might mean there’s a cleaner way now.
What worries me is when developers just get something working and throw it in without a second look. Sadly, I’ve seen that happen more often than I’d like. That lack of reflection leads to brittle systems and technical debt that builds quietly over time.
Takeaway: Reflecting doesn’t slow you down. It sharpens your decisions. Iterating on your own code, even slightly, is a sign of engineering discipline, not indecision.
The list Chat GPT provided to assist in daily logging (they were bonus content, nothing I asked for)
