There’s something very primal about cooking; something close to the core of the human experience. I could ramble for hours on the subject, and perhaps I will soon, but today I want to touch on something core to cooking; and, I think, software development.
Mise en place (literally, put in place) is to cookery what Ki is to Japanese martial arts. It is a guiding principle that defies exact definition; internalizing its lessons trumps verbal or written transmission every time, but I’m going to try anyway.
There are exceptions, but most of cookery can be broken into fairly simple steps that are performed at your leisure. What stresses a lot of us amateurs is the perception that the entire recipe is final preparation; that is, it must be performed from beginning to end in one session. Professionals know that is not even close to the truth, and that knowledge is the essence of mise en place. You do not want to be finishing a delicate sauce and realize that the butter is currently rock-hard in your refrigerator. The sauce will know, and it will punish you for your oversight. Have everything ready before you begin.
Likewise, professional software development is preparation. Do you know all the compilation options of your IDE or compiler? Are you protecting yourself with assertions, tests, and specific exceptions? Are you documenting the whys and not the whats? It is possible to have these things, and more, at the halfway point prior to writing a single line of application code. The final assembly should be a pleasurable, if chaotic, process; you shouldn’t be worrying about where you left your knife…or closure assertion.
August 26, 2007 at 12:13 am
[...] Mise en place is French for “setting in place.” It is used to describe the process of preparation of ingredients and equipment before cooking actually takes place. This is where the pros shine, and far too often amateurs prepare poorly or don’t prepare at all. Trust me, if everything is in the right place when you begin, the rest of the cooking process is frequently a breeze. It is truly a cooking best practice. [...]