The Pragmatic Programmer Quotes

“The DRY principle tells us to keep the low-level knowledge in the code, where it belongs, and reserve the comments for other, high-level explanations.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer

“Entropy is a term from physics that refers to the amount of "disorder" in a system.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer

“it is up to you to provide solutions, not excuses.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer

“A Pragmatic Programmer takes charge of his or her own career, and isn't afraid to admit ignorance or error.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer

“One of the cornerstones of the pragmatic philosophy is the idea of taking responsibility for yourself and your actions in terms of your career advancement, your project, and your day-to-day work.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer

“Within the overall structure of a project there is always room for individuality and craftsmanship.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer

“One broken window—a badly designed piece of code, a poor management decision that the team must live with for the duration of the project—is all it takes to start the decline. If you find yourself working on a project with quite a few broken windows, it's all too easy to slip into the mindset of "All the rest of this code is crap, I'll just follow suit.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer

“Don't rely on the properties of things you can't control.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Most people assume that maintenance begins when an application is released, that maintenance means fixing bugs and enhancing features. We think these people are wrong.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“it is equally unprofessional to promise impossible time scales and to cut basic engineering corners to meet a deadline.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“There are other factors that can contribute to software rot, and we'll touch on some of them elsewhere, but neglect accelerates the rot faster than any other factor.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“You have the right not to take on a responsibility for an impossible situation,”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Pragmatic Programmers won't sit idly by and watch their projects fall apart through neglect.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. • Benjamin Franklin”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Would I be happy to use the software?”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Test automatically. We want to start testing as soon as we have code.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“One size fits no one well.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Do what works and not what's fashionable.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Good communication is key to avoiding these problems, and by "good" we mean instant and frictionless.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“To make this whole Agile thing work, we need to practice good design, because good design makes things easy to change.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Finding an answer that happens to fit, is not the same as the right answer.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Always try to find the root cause of a problem.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“...the difference between human readable and human understandable.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Remember, all software becomes legacy software become legacy as soon as it's written.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“As pragmatic programmers our base material isn't wood or iron, it's knowledge.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“You can't be a good programmer until you become highly skilled at debugging.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Always be on the lookout for better ways of doing things.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Tools amplify your talent.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“If only we had this kind of control over quality,
but the real World just won't let us produce much that it's truly perfect, particularly not bug free software.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“Try to fix it but don't try forever.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master