Do Not Delete Rule for Data During Development
Ever noticed how we never seem to delete any data anymore? GMail doesn’t even offer the Delete button, substituting it with the Archive button instead. In the internet age, Data is God, while code can come and go. Yet, during development of software, we put in test data and casually delete it all the time. That mindset causes some unexpected problems, when software moves from that test bed to production.
I have wondered whether we should have a “Do not Delete” rule for data even during development. Developers would get used to treating data as something sacred. Data integrity, and therefore software quality would improve.