From Red Tape to No Tape: Maximizing Agile in Your Organization - Part One

From Red Tape to No Tape: Maximizing Agile in Your Organization - Part One: "By limiting people’s creative thinking, initiative, and ultimately sense of control over their work, some of the major advantages of agile are quashed; the ability to push decisions to the level of the organization where the work is (and therefore the most is known about the work) and the ability to use many minds to collaborate in ideas."

Don't checkin ToDo

That's what I think, anyway.

ToDo markers generally shouldn't survive a commit.
If you commit code with ToDo markers in them, you're not done with your current, discrete piece of work yet.
Oh! The ToDo notes are for some other piece of work? OK, then I think it's best if they're entered into an issue tracker, and you delete the ToDo. Then you can check in.

Because ToDo work gets lost. How many times have you seen some ToDo marker in your code that's been there who knows how many months (years?)? Was it important? Is it still important? Is this what's been causing that weird bug?
The whole point of an issue tracking system is to make sure the work you want to get done gets done, and nothing else. If you're supposed to do it, it goes in the issue tracker. If it's just an ephemeral indicator of work to be done in this checkin, then ToDo is a perfect reminder.
The best IDEs offer a window in which you can see all your ToDo markers and go wrap them up before you check in. (Or make issues out of them)

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Edit (May 17):
Intellij Idea just released v10.5. On their "What's new" page, I see they agree with me:

Now you're painting with Portals

-no spoilers-
You know that one level in Portal 2 where you can spray the white paint everywhere?
I did. Took me about 30 minutes. I don't know why I did that.
Then I watched my wife play. Wordlessly, I watched, and internally giggled as she did the same thing. Why?
It's like, "Oh, I missed a spot. There, that should do it. Ahh... a winter wonderland!"
At some point, we all have to ask ourselves the question, "What area do I *actually* need painted?"
But that question comes much too late, because we avoid it. We pointlessly and happily busy ourselves with the paint, pretending the question doesn't exist, or deciding just to think about it later.
That level truly is some kind of psychological test.