Another way to read this would be that you shouldn't just be the one to churn out lines of code according to a specific request. More often than not, you'll be

Another way to read this would be that you shouldn't just be the one to churn out lines of code according to a specific request. More often than not, you'll be well advised to first get to understand the problem you're supposed to be solving and come up with a good solution rather than what you're told at first. The XY problem[1] is not limited to technical people, it will very likely also affect your boss or your customers. Occasionally, there's even the counterintuitive case where you can handle more use cases by deleting code, which I personally find very rewarding :) [1]: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem/66378#66378 https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-x...