I used to be a really fast java programmer. If you wanted something written quickly, I was your guy. But that was "so last month...".

Certainly not today.

And it's a psychological struggle, because I'm fighting back the shame constantly. It's embarrassing as hell being this slow - even when no-one is watching.

Why so slow?

I'm working on my own software now. This is my nickel. Not billing others for my time, so I can do things right.

Such as but not limited to these "better" practices that I used to largely ignore in the interest of speed.

• Writing tests for everything I write.
• Setting up infrastructure first, not a year after I needed it.
• Never writing a similar project twice, using an archetype template and writing a replication routine etc.
• Using Spring dependency injection in each appropriate circumstance instead of when it is convenient.
• Using modularity to organize code into little, discrete, independent jars.
• Using OSGI to keep all my modules clean.
• Interfaces instead of concrete classes for calls between projects.
• Writing a maven generated "site" for each module, that gives a future module developer insight into what's what.
• etc. etc.