Why are you coding?
There is a good article here about the need to explain why you are coding. I've often found that with most projects or tasks people are reluctant to give you the high level picture - it wastes too much time and, "you don't need to know". It reminded me of several situations where someone comes to me and says - "I want you to write a program that does this...". I say "sure", expecting that they have done the due diligence and arrived at the conclusion that this is the correct thing to do. (I've even had my knuckles wrapped several times for second-guessing these requests). So, you proceed with development and somewhere along the line (at the watercooler, elevator or kitchen) you mention what you are doing, and they hit you with "There's no need to do that because system XYZ is being replaced with ABC" or some other equally jaw-dropping statement. I like to know the bigger picture of where a piece of work fits in, because then I ca...