4 Tips to Avoid Rushing to Code (and Building the Wrong Thing)

The author shares an experience of wasting two days on a hotel management tool task due to misaligned expectations with a team lead, which could have been avoided by asking a single clarifying question. Four practical tips are presented: understand the 'why' behind a task, read existing code first, outline solutions with comments, and write a brief spec before coding. The core message is that gaining context and alignment before writing code prevents building the wrong thing.