Various, reverse-ranked truisms by Eric Raymond from the late 1990s.
| 19 |
Provided the development coordinator has a medium at least as good as
the Internet, and knows how to lead without coercion, many heads are
inevitably better than one.
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| 18 |
To solve an interesting problem, start by finding a
problem that is interesting to you.
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| 17 |
A security system is only as secure as its secret. Beware of
pseudo-secrets.
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| 16 |
When your language is nowhere near Turing-complete, syntactic sugar
can be your friend.
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| 15 |
When writing gateway software of any kind, take pains to disturb the
data stream as little as possible -- and *never* throw away information
unless the recipient forces you to!
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| 14 |
Any tool should be useful in the expected way, but a *great* tool
lends itself to uses you never expected.
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| 13 |
``Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more
to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away.''
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| 12 |
Often, the most striking and innovative solutions come from realizing
that your concept of the problem was wrong.
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| 11 |
The next best thing to having good ideas is recognizing good ideas
from your users. Sometimes the latter is better.
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| 10 |
If you treat your beta-testers as if they're your most valuable
resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource.
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| 9 |
Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other
way around.
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| 8 |
Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every
problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone.
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| 7 |
Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.
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| 6 |
Treating your users as co-developers is your least-hassle route to
rapid code improvement and effective debugging.
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| 5 |
When you lose interest in a program, your last duty to it is to hand
it off to a competent successor.
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| 4 |
If you have the right attitude, interesting problems will find you.
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| 3 |
``Plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow.'' (Fred Brooks, ``The
Mythical Man-Month'', Chapter 11)
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| 2 |
Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite
(and reuse).
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| 1 |
Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's
personal itch.
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