Quotes:

Let me know about any attribution mistakes, or if you authored one and want it removed/amended.

• On simplicity:
  • "The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity" - Douglas Horton ^{q210128160849 (art-simplicity)}
  • "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler!" - Albert Einstein (?) ^{q210128160850 (no-simpler)}
  • "Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand" - Martin Fowler ^{q210128160847 (any-fool)}
  • (about Scala code) "[...] blue sky practices for those who can use a map and an option but don’t want to relearn Advanced Algebra to make an [web] application" - Gonzalo Fernandez on Jessica Kerr's talk ^{q210128160854 (blue-sky)}
• On readibility:
  • "Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute" - Abelson & Sussman ^{q210128160848 (incidental-run)}
  • "Good code is its own best documentation" - Steve McConnell ^{q210128160846 (good-code)}
  • "Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more months might as well have been written by someone else" - Eagleson's law ^{q210128162648 (six-months)}
  • "Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live" - John Woods ^{q210128160845 (psychopath)}
  • "There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things" - Phil Karlton ^{q210128160843 (naming-things)}
• On abstractions:
  • "All models are wrong, but some are useful" - George Box (?) ^{q210128160844 (wrong-models)}
  • "Duplication is far cheaper than the wrong abstraction" - Sandi Metz ^{q210128160840 (wrong-abstraction)}
  • "All abstractions[,] leak, and the only way to deal with the leaks competently is to learn about how the abstractions work and what they are abstracting" - Joel Spolsky ^{q210128160841 (leaky-abstractions)}
• On planning:
  • "Talk is cheap. Show me the code." - Linus Torvalds ^{q210128160952-showcode}
  • "If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late" - Reid Hoffman ^{q210128160842 (mvp)}
  • "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law" - Hofstadter's Law ^{q210129095626 (hofstadter)}
  • "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion" - Parkinson's law ^{q210129095627 (parkinson)}
  • "Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming; feedback is the treatment" - Kent Beck ^{q210128160851 (optimism)}
  • (on calling ourselves software "engineers" or "architects") "If bridge building were like programming, halfway through we'd find out that the far bank was now 50 meters farther out, that it was actually mud rather than granite, and that rather than building a footbridge we were instead building a road bridge." - Sam Newman ^{q210128160856 (engineering)}
• About everything in life:
  • "For many outcomes roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes (the 'vital few')" - The Pareto principle, A.K.A. the "80/20 rule" ^{q210128160852 (pareto)}