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Laws of Programming

  1. Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life.
  2. Real programmers are those that can sleep in front of terminals ... with their eyes opened.
  3. Real programmers don't work from 9 to 5. If any real programmers are around at 9am it's because they were up all night.
  4. 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 way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.
  5. A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.
  6. A crash is when your competitor's program dies. When your program dies, it is an 'idiosyncrasy'. Frequently, crashes are followed with a message like 'ID 02'. 'ID' is an abbreviation for idiosyncrasy and the number that follows indicates how many more months of testing the product should have had.
  7. There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one works.
  8. As a rule, software systems do not work well until they have been used, and have failed repeatedly, in real applications.
  9. Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
  10. Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers.

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Feedback:Doug.Aberdeen AT anu.edu.au