Effective Programming Quotes

“Success is rarely determined by the quality of your ideas. But it is frequently determined by the quality of your execution.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“If money doesn’t make you happy, then you probably aren’t spending it right.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“As a software developer, you are your own worst enemy. The sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“If you give a good idea to a mediocre group, they’ll screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a good group, they’ll fix it. Or they’ll throw it away and come up with something else.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“worst team member is the best predictor of how any team performs. It doesn’t seem to matter how great the best member is,”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“So much of leadership is learning to give a damn about other people, something that we programmers are notoriously bad at.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“The toughest thing in life is not learning a bunch of potentially hypothetically useful stuff, but figuring out what the heck it is you want to do.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“I’m constantly running across comments from developers who don’t seem to understand that the code already tells us how it works; we need the comments to tell us why it works. Code comments”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“But everyone should try writing a little code, because it somehow sharpens the mind, right?”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“Oftentimes, the whole reason we became programmers in the first place is because we wanted to move beyond being a mere player and change the game, control it, modify its parameters, maybe even create our own games.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“the ultimate unit test is whether or not users want to use your application. All the other tests you write are totally irrelevant until you can get that one to pass.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“3. Buy many small pleasures instead of few big ones”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“2. Help others instead of yourself”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“we programmers spend our lives writing code so that our fellow human beings no longer need to write code”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“Success is rarely determined by the quality of your ideas. But it is frequently determined by the quality of your execution.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“Brevity of code Featurefulness Speed of execution Time spent coding Robustness Flexibility”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, The ones we don’t know We don’t know.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“Let's say I was tasked with determining whether your software project will fail. With the responses to these three questions in hand, I can tell you with almost utter certainty whether your project will fail: How many lines of code will your team write? What kind of software are you building? Do you like your coworkers? That last question isn't a joke. I'm not kidding. Do you like the company of your teammates on a personal level? Do you respect your teammates professionally? If you were starting at another company, would you invite your coworkers along? Do you have spirited team discussions or knock-down, drag-out, last man standing filibuster team arguments? Are there any people on your team you'd "vote off the island" if you could?”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“8. Follow the herd instead of your head”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“7. Beware of comparison shopping”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“6. Think about what you're not thinking about”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“5. Pay now and consume later”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“4. Buy less insurance”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“1. Buy experiences instead of things”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“What is, then, the science of happiness? I'll summarize the basic eight points as”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“how you spend your money has a strong influence on how happy — or unhappy — it will make you. And, again, there's science behind this.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“Despite popular assertions to the contrary, science tells us that money can buy happiness. To a point.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It’s about saying no to all but the most crucial features.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“Good thing you’re tagging all those “Low Priority” tasks. God forbid you’d ever lose track of shit that’s not worth doing.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
― Jeff Atwood, Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code