As programs get bigger, they also become more complex and harder to understand. We all think ourselves pretty clever, of course, but we are mere human beings, and even a moderate amount of chaos tends to baffle us. And then it all goes downhill. Working on something you do not really understand is a bit like cutting random wires on those time-activated bombs they always have in movies. If you are lucky, you might get the right one ― especially if you are the hero of the movie and strike a suitably dramatic pose ― but there is always the possibility of blowing everything up.

Daniel Steigerwald is the Creator of Este, dev stack and starter kit for React/Flux universal web applications. Angel developer, Google Developer Expert, libertarian.