“It would be awesome if saving a page also made you toast”, I will think as I start to write the code involved in wiring up a toaster.

As a developer, I have a lot of power over what features get built or not built, and how exactly they function.

One of the results of being in this position is that features for things sometimes end up getting done as I realize they’re needed, as opposed to when they actually are – and one of the problems with that is that I occasionally don’t have the best ideas for features.

“It would be awesome if saving a page also made you toast”, I will think as I start to write the code involved in wiring up a toaster to Inflight. After a half a day or so, the feature will be finished – and I’ll have a bunch of old, cold toast lying around from testing.

But at the end of the day, does having a nice, warm slice of toast for every time you save a page really improve things that much? What happens if you’re saving a page multiple times a day? Having some toast on every page save is great if you’re about to have a dinner(or toast) party, but perhaps not so good if you just want to update your content and be done with it.

While making toast every time you save a page seems a bit outlandish(although tasty), it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking “it would be cool if…” when you’re discussing a feature. The moment that you start discussing a feature using “it would be cool” instead of “it would improve something”, you’re in trouble – you’ve started looking at the feature in terms of the tasty toast it will produce, instead of the time it will save or user experience it will improve.

“Toast-think” is dangerous. Having it happen too often means that you’ll spend time building things that no one actually wants – but everyone thinks is cool. As a developer(and the person responsible for building the feature), it’s unfortunately part of my job to say “I know it would be cool, but do we need it?”. Sometimes we do, and sometimes we don’t – but by asking the question of ourselves, we can stay focused on the things we do need, without getting distracted by the things we don’t.