97 Things Every Programmer Should Know Quotes

“Write code as if you had to support it for the rest of your life.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“If your code needs comments, consider refactoring it so it doesn’t.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“As Tony Hoare observed: There are two ways of constructing a software design: one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“Reading other people's code is particularly hard. Not necessarily because other people's code is bad, but because they probably think and solve problems in a different way to you.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“Most of the best programmers I know are also very fluent in their mother's
tongue, and typically in other languages as well.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“Good programming is not born from mere technical competence. I've seen highly intellectual programmers who can produce intense and impressive algorithms, who know their language standard by heart, but who write the most awful code.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“We programmers are weird creatures. We love writing code. But when it comes to reading it we usually shy away. After all, writing code is so much more fun, and reading code is hard — sometimes almost impossible.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“Ask yourself, how much of your time do you spend developing someone else’s product? How much developing yourself?”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“Fixing bugs is not making progress. You aren't paid to debug. Debugging is waste.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“A non-programmer friend once remarked that code looks like poetry. I get that feeling from really good code, that everything in the text has a purpose and that it's there to help me understand the idea. Unfortunately, writing code doesn't have the same romantic image aswriting poetry.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“You need to spend evenings, weekends, and holidays educating yourself, therefore you cannot spend your evenings, weekends, and holidays working overtime on your current project.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“Beauty is born of and found in simplicity.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“You don't have to make every module perfect before you check it in. You simply have to make it a little bit better than when you checked it out.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“When did things go wrong? Probably already at the kick-off meeting. Some of the project members didn't pay attention. Others didn't understand the point. Worse, some disagreed and were already planning their coding standard rebellion. Finally, some got the point and agreed but, when the pressure in the project got too high, they had to let something go.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“The next time an idea for a small program springs to mind, awaken your knowledge of the Java class library from hibernation rather than reaching for that JHipster scaffold. Hipsterism is passé; living a simple life is where it’s at now. I bet Mort loved the simple life.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Java Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“Instead of simply correcting mistakes in code, the purpose of code reviews should be to share knowledge and establish common coding guidelines.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“A skilled surgeon knows that cuts have to be made in order to operate, but the skilled surgeon also
knows that the cuts are temporary and will heal. The end result of the operation is worth the initial pain, and the patient should heal to a better state than they were in before the surgery.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“Instead of commenting sections in long functions, extract smaller functions whose names capture the former sections' intent.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“The Boy Scouts have a rule: "Always leave the campground cleaner than you found it.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“One reason to format the code in a uniform way is so that nobody can "own" a piece of code just by formatting it in his or her private way.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“Professional programming is usually not like running hard for a few kilometers, where the goal can be seen at the end of a paved road. Most software projects are more like a long orienteering marathon. In the dark. With only a sketchy map as guidance. If you just set off in one direction, running as fast as you can, you might impress some, but you are not likely to succeed. You need to keep a sustainable pace and you need to adjust the course when you learn more about where you are and where you are heading.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“Kernighan and Plauger noted that "a comment is of zero (or negative) value if it is wrong.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“As a professional programmer, you should know that trying to be focused and “productive” 60 hours a week is not a sensible thing to do.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“one of software’s biggest obstacles is smart people who purposefully propagate the guru myth.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“Next time you are tempted to lump a few things together into one API method, remember that the English language does not have one word for MakeUpYourRoomBeQuietAndDoYourHomeWork, even though it would be really convenient for such a frequently requested operation.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

“If we accept that code is design — a creative process rather than a mechanical one — the software crisis is explained. We now have a design crisis: the demand for quality, validated designs exceeds our capacity to create them. The pressure to use incomplete design is strong.”
― Kevlin Henney, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts