--- title: The Biggest Mistake New Developers Make: Coding Before... description: Jumping straight into coding without planning leads to messy, hard-to-maintain projects as they grow. Before writing code, answering a few key questions about... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-biggest-mistake-new-developers-make-coding-before-planning-ouszey0ab twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The Biggest Mistake New Developers Make: Coding Before Planning | daily.dev og:description: Jumping straight into coding without planning leads to messy, hard-to-maintain projects as they grow. Before writing code, answering a few key questions about... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-biggest-mistake-new-developers-make-coding-before-planning-ouszey0ab og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/OuSzeY0Ab.png og:image:alt: The Biggest Mistake New Developers Make: Coding Before Planning og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The Biggest Mistake New Developers Make: Coding Before Planning **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 3 min read · 3 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Jumping straight into coding without planning leads to messy, hard-to-maintain projects as they grow. Before writing code, answering a few key questions about responsibilities, likely changes, and component independence is enough to create a scalable structure. A Python PDF invoice processor illustrates how separating concerns into modules made it easy to later add multiprocessing and AI extraction without rewriting anything. Spending 20–30 minutes on upfront structure can save hours of refactoring later — the goal isn't perfect architecture, just enough scaffolding for the project to grow naturally. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Behind Every Successful Software Project Is a Good Plan](https://daily.dev/posts/behind-every-successful-software-project-is-a-good-plan-umsroklgb) · Medium · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [You're Not Paid to Write Code](https://daily.dev/posts/you-re-not-paid-to-write-code-v90betmzy) · Tech World With Milan · 288 upvotes · 26 comments - [dotNetDave Says… Rushing into Coding Without Proper Planning Will Lead to Costly Mistakes and Delays](https://daily.dev/posts/dotnetdave-says-rushing-into-coding-without-proper-planning-will-lead-to-costly-mistakes-and-delays-vifrw1meo) · We Are .NET · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Your job isn't programming](https://daily.dev/posts/your-job-isn-t-programming-9tv8vusyc) · Lobsters · 1 upvotes · 1 comments - [Growing Software](https://daily.dev/posts/growing-software-mew6fcra2) · Ruby Flow · 59 upvotes · 4 comments --- Tags: [#python](https://daily.dev/tags/python), [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-biggest-mistake-new-developers-make-coding-before-planning-ouszey0ab) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The Biggest Mistake New Developers Make: Coding Before Planning","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-biggest-mistake-new-developers-make-coding-before-planning-ouszey0ab","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-biggest-mistake-new-developers-make-coding-before-planning-ouszey0ab"},"datePublished":"2026-07-17T17:03:26.983Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T20:53:11.962Z","description":"Jumping straight into coding without planning leads to messy, hard-to-maintain projects as they grow. 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