Prompted by a question about the term ‘shipping code’ I’ve got a short explanation.

Shipped code is not just code that has been committed to your version control system. It’s not code that you wrote and is sitting in some folder somewhere. Shipped code is tested and deployed in some live environment.

I classify a live environment as a place someone can take a look at what you wrote. That may be Github or it may be running a client site.

I try to ‘ship’ code daily or really what did I get done?

2 responses to “Shipped Code or ?”

  1. Christine Avatar

    I like the classification of “a place someone can take a look at what you wrote”.

    I write code everyday and push it on a live server most days, but I working by myself, no one ever looks at it. But I guess the websites wouldn’t work without it.

    I just never heard of “shipping” before. To me it sounds a bit odd… like using UPS or something. 🙂

    1. curtismchale Avatar
      curtismchale

      Way to many coders get in a spot where the tack away all day and have nothing to show for it at the end of the day. They congratulate themselves on getting things done but nothing of any value came out of it, they just pushed letters around a screen. I actually try to have working code pushed to a site every few hours. I’ve found the more often you ‘ship’ the more likely it is you’re actually getting things done, and you catch bugs faster.