This morning my sister-in-law gave me a hair cut in the kitchen, while Harvey, my nearly-two-year-old son watched with curiosity.

Then he noticed I had a towel draped over my shoulders, and it became a game of peek-a-boo.

Then he wanted to remove the towel from my shoulders.

As often happens when I watch him play and learn, I started thinking: What’s going through his mind?

He’s very aware that I’m getting a haircut. He’s watching with intensity as those clippers approach my head.

He’s also very aware that I’m wearing a towel… he thinks its a toy and he wants full control over it.

What he doesn’t appreciate is the connection between these two things: the haircut, and the towel, to help kee my clothes clean from hair clippings.

This reminded me of coding. (Nerdy, I know… a parenting moment, and I’m thinking about coding… whatever)

How often do we come across pieces of code that look completely superfluous? Like a towel to a toddler during a haircut.

Then maybe we remove that “superfluous” code, only to later realize the purpose it was serving.