Every line is a promise.
A promise to read it again.
A promise to test it.
A promise to keep it alive when everything around it moves.
We measure ourselves by what we add.
Lines written.
Files touched.
Features shipped.
But the codebase remembers what we left behind.
The dead branch nobody dares to cut.
The flag that guards a path already gone.
The helper called once, in a place no one visits.
They cost nothing to write.
They cost forever to carry.
A feature you remove can never break in production.
A test you delete can never flake at 3 a.m.
A config you retire can never drift out of sync.
Deletion is not loss.
Deletion is the interest you stop paying.
But it takes nerve.
Adding is applause.
Removing is a quiet room and a green build.
Nobody thanks you for the bug that never happened.
Nobody notices the on-call night that stayed asleep.
So notice it yourself.
Open the file you have been avoiding.
Find the thing that no longer earns its keep.
Read it once, to be sure.
Then let it go.
The best pull request is often shorter than the last one.
Not because you did less.
Because you finally understood enough to need less.
A junior adds until it works.
A senior removes until it is obvious.
The obvious code is the code that survives you.
It has no clever corners to explain.
No history you have to have been there for.
No trap set by a past version of yourself.
Write to solve the problem.
Then read to find what the solution outgrew.
The finished piece is not the one with nothing left to add.
It is the one with nothing left to take away
that you would not immediately miss.
Ship the smaller thing.
Your future self is on call for all of it.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
