Meal-Prep Software Idea

I was washing dishes today and realized that the best way I’ve found to create good software is to think of development as cooking. It’s just an analogy, I know, but it helps explain to stakeholders not only the importance of certain actions but also when and why they are needed. More importantly, it highlights how software development, like cooking, is a balancing act.

Why do we need analogies?

The biggest issue in software development isn’t technical—it’s people. Writing good software involves multiple factors: performance, efficiency, system constraints, and maintainability. It’s about crafting solutions that are not just functional but also adaptable over time. Code should be clear, well-structured, and easy to modify without introducing instability.

Even when a team gets all of that right, there’s still a bigger challenge: higher management. This is where technical discussions and even “writing good code” can fall apart. For a manager, what matters is delivering value. Every change must contribute to a visible, interactive output. This is where analogies like cooking can help bridge the gap.

Cooking Software

Let’s imagine we want to cook a meal—a feast. We need to prepare multiple dishes, ensuring everything reaches the table hot and fresh. Not an easy task, right? Now, imagine doing this with limited resources: a small kitchen, a few pans, maybe not enough space to cook everything at once. Better yet, imagine cooking for your entire family in your home kitchen.

Maybe thinking about cooking like this helps us frame these problems more tangibly. Everyone understands cooking, making it a common language. As you picture this scenario, you’re likely already thinking about ways to manage the task efficiently. You might consider:

• Should I order food? (Hire a third party?)
• Should I plan the order in which I cook the dishes? (Plan the project?)
• Should I ask for help? (Work with a team?)
  • Which tasks should I delegate?
• What about meal prep? (Modular design?)
  • If I chop onions first, I can use them across multiple dishes, reducing redundancy and speeding up preparation.

These questions are fundamental to handling large challenges. Managers ask themselves the same things. They’re constantly balancing priorities while figuring out how to deliver the product faster.

Just as planning the cooking process ensures efficiency, keeping the kitchen clean throughout the process is just as important. No matter how well you organize your meal, if the dishes pile up and the kitchen becomes a mess, the work slows down. You lose space, tools become harder to find, and the sheer thought of cleaning everything at once becomes overwhelming. The same happens in software development: ignoring maintenance and letting technical debt accumulate will slow the process and make necessary changes harder to implement.

Wash As You Go, Not All at Once

So why all this? Returning to the idea of why we need analogies, we as technical professionals need to step back from our hyper-focused world and understand what we’re truly asking from management. It’s not just about reducing technical debt, improving abstractions, or creating common solutions that streamline development across teams and services. It’s about understanding what these actions mean for the entire process, the people involved, and the managers trying to balance priorities. More importantly, it’s about communicating these ideas in a way that resonates.

We’re not trying to predict the future—maybe it’s just about keeping the kitchen functional. If we cook every dish without washing along the way, we’ll run out of space and clean utensils, making progress increasingly difficult. A well-designed system might not just help us move faster; maybe it also keeps complexity in check, allowing the software to scale without leading to unmanageable technical debt or instability.

Final Thoughts on Complexity and Collaboration

Keeping software maintainable is about more than just avoiding slowdowns—it’s about ensuring that adding new features doesn’t introduce chaos. A single unwashed plate has a trivial cost to clean, but a full sink of dirty dishes is far more than the sum of its parts. The psychological burden of seeing the pile, the dread of tackling the whole mess, and the way it physically obstructs the workspace all contribute to making the cleanup significantly harder.

If we clean as we go, maintenance remains manageable. A well-structured codebase ensures that technical debt does not spiral out of control, making it possible to confidently introduce new features without breaking existing functionality.

I think this meal-prep idea is an interesting way to reflect on how experienced developers interact with their teams. Maybe it helps frame discussions about complexity, organization, and collaboration. Maybe cooking together, like developing software, gives us a way to think about planning, adaptation, and how individual tasks contribute to the bigger picture. When teams embrace this mindset, they can work more effectively, ensuring long-term success without unnecessary friction.