You wouldn’t go on sabbatical or maternity leave without making plans for the smooth operation of your group. You wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) want to walk out the door with all inside knowledge about how a project works. But that kind of thing happens all the time – people have heart attacks, get killed or seriously injured in accidents or resign in a huff -- and those left behind often have problems picking up the pieces. Even when a co-worker leaves on friendly terms, they frequently take whole chapters of them corporate knowledgebase with them.
Here are some practical suggestions for programmers from the cancer patient.
• Make certain that source code is where it should be. If that means that the client should have it, make sure they do. If that means that it should be checked into the employer's source code control system, make sure you do.
• Clearly document anything "strange" in the source code you deliver. When I am coding, and I do something in the source code that is either very clever (perhaps too clever) or potentially confusing, I place a comment in the code that will encourage me to return to the code to address the issue. In Visual Studio, placing a TODO comment is a great way of tracking such sections of code. Whether you clearly comment the code, or (better yet) clean up the code, you should make sure that another developer can understand it.
• Make certain you have a "buddy" developer who knows what you are doing. This is a time when you might want to take a young developer under your wing. Whatever happens to your health – win, lose or draw – what better legacy is there than to have brought up a new developer.
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