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What's Your Favorite IT Quote or Rule? And How Does It Influence Your Work?

Quotes and rules can be great sources of inspiration and guidance in the world of IT. Some of our favorites here at DEV are the Agile Manifesto and this quote by Grace Hopper:

The most dangerous phrase in the language is 'we've always done it this way.

Share your favorite quotes and rules and discuss how they've helped shape your approach to IT and technology.


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Top comments (17)

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valeriavg profile image
Valeria

“Fail fast”

Some things just don’t work out the way you intend them too, but it’s essential to at least give it a quick try. Because the faster you fail - the faster you’ll learn something. And the more you fail - the more you learn!

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fjones profile image
FJones

Paraphrasing Johnson & Fowler: "Software architecture is a shared understanding of the things that are important."
This really encapsulates everything about my approach to software architecture:

  1. Make sure everyone understands how we want the software to be built.
  2. Focus on the important stuff. Focus on the things that are hard to change later, focus on exit strategies for when you do need to change them.
  3. Don't get lost in details. Strict adherence to patterns doesn't solve problems. Patterns are guidelines. Formalizing every piece of the architecture makes you lose sight of the bigger picture - the important stuff.
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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

The campsite rule: Leave the code cleaner than you found it.

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ryencode profile image
Ryan Brown

Any probability repeated often enough becomes a certainty.
Comes into play when i hear things like: "But that is unlikely to happen" or "It's too rare to consider".
Mostly heard by people who don't deal with a) the consequences of "rare" events, b) new devs/non-techies who don't understand the scale of how fast computers can make 1 error into milions c) people who don't grok Murphy's law

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mistval profile image
Randall

"So then if it does happen, it must be okay for the servers to crash and all the data to be corrupted. Okay then, next topic :)"

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ryencode profile image
Ryan Brown

The nuclear option!
Employed well when no one group/person wants to Own a product/solution: "Ok so no own wants to own it? you want the Devs to own it? OK, we don't need it and we'll turn it off."
"NO NOT LIKE THAT! WAIT!"

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papercoding22 profile image
Paper Coding

The harder your code is to read, the harder it is for people to replace you

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rainleander profile image
Rain Leander

"The future is not binary." - Meredith Whittaker

As a nonbinary person, Meredith Whittaker's quote reminds me that technology should not only be inclusive of diverse gender identities, but that it has the potential to expand beyond the binary limitations of traditional societal structures.

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shirobachi profile image
Shirobachi

"Don't blame people from make mistake, or write regex each time you do that"
Simple just don't other feel bad, learn from mistake!

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hlnvoyer profile image
Helene Voyer • Edited

Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
-Martin Fowler (co-author of Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code

I keep that in mind whenever I modify existing code or write new code.

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stalwartcoder profile image
Abhishek Mishra

Keep it simple stupid.

PS: Keeping things simple is hardest part :)

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ralphhightower profile image
Ralph Hightower

My favorite quote is from Frederick Brooks in his book, The Mythical Man-month:

  • The flawed nine pregnant women project management model, about adding more people to a project: "If it takes a woman Nine months to produce a baby, then nine pregnant women can produce a baby in one month.
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brense profile image
Rense Bakker • Edited

My favorite rule is: assumption is the mother of all f***-ups.

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codenerd profile image
Hiro

"Never say never, just give it a try!" - Gabriel Lee (and do you want to know who he is? yep, it's me. 🤗🤗🤗)

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namenotavilable profile image
Adam Markiewicz

Everyone brings something to the table and by how he feels and acts regarding and about this fact tells a whole story. That's why I am as I am.

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webbureaucrat profile image
webbureaucrat

be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.

--RFC 761 of the TCP protocol

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clericcoder profile image
Abdulsalaam Noibi

Talk is cheap,show me the code