Only implement functionality when you need it

up:: Programming best practices ⚐

… never when you foresee that you will need itl.

“It is hard for less experienced developers to appreciate how rarely architecting for future requirements / applications turns out net-positive” – John Carmack

Aka: YAGNI.

Related is the idea to do the simplest thing that could possibly work. This idea is also picked up in the Test driven development methodology.

The underlying idea is that future requirements change too quickly to predict what will be needed in the future. “Only write today’s code”.

See also: