Quotes from Andrew Hunt

Tip 1 Care About Your Craft We feel that there is no point in developing software unless you care about doing it well.

think critically about what you read and hear. You need to ensure that the knowledge in your portfolio is accurate and unswayed by either vendor or media hype.

What to Say When Asked for an Estimate You say I'll get back to you.

Tip 2 Think! About Your Work

There is no such thing as a best solution, be it a tool, a language, or an operating system.

If you are doing very detailed implementation and coding, read a book on design and architecture. If you are doing high-level design, read a book on coding techniques.

You almost always get better results if you slow the process down and spend some time going through the steps

Don't Think Outside the Box—Find the Box

There can only be systems that are more appropriate in a particular set of circumstances.

Never run on auto-pilot. Constantly be thinking, critiquing your work in real time.

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays

I believe that it is better to be looked over than it is to be overlooked. • Mae West, Belle of the Nineties, 1934

Like the craftsman, expect to add to your toolbox regularly. Always be on the lookout for better ways of doing things.

Debugging itself is a sensitive, emotional subject for many developers. Instead of attacking it as a puzzle to be solved, you may encounter denial, finger pointing, lame excuses, or just plain apathy.

It's not just what you've got, but also how you package it.

We write code, which communicates our intentions to a machine and documents our thinking for future generations of developers.

Just as woodworkers sometimes build jigs to guide the construction of complex pieces, programmers can write code that itself writes code.

A dead program normally does a lot less damage than a crippled one.

we work daily within our teams to advocate our ideas, modify existing practices, and suggest new ones.

A large part of our day is spent communicating, so we need to do it well.

As Pragmatic Programmers, our base material isn't wood or iron, it's knowledge. We gather requirements as knowledge, and then express that knowledge in our designs, implementations, tests, and documents.

Listen to Nagging Doubts—Start When You're Ready

Let your instincts contribute to your performance.

When an estimate turns out wrong, don't just shrug and walk away. Find out why it differed from your guess. Maybe you chose some parameters that didn't match the reality of the problem. Maybe your model was wrong. Whatever the reason, take some time to uncover what happened. If you do, your next estimate will be better.