Conventional Wisdom for Programmers

During one of my debug session and while surfing over the net for answers, I find this list of things that I think may come in handy for every programmers out there... First Law of Debugging: It ain't what you don't know that hurts you. It's what you do know that just ain't so. In other words, when you're sure of everything but your program still doesn't work, one of the things you're sure of is wrong. Second Law of Debugging: Testing can only show the presence of bugs. It says nothing about their absence. Debug the code - not the comments. First Rule of Program Development: A program that does only 80% of the job but works is better than one that does 100% but doesn't work. Second Rule of Program Development: The first 80% of a program takes 80% of development time. The last 20% of development takes the other 80% of time. The sooner you start to code, the longer the program will take to finish. Law of Least Astonishment: The most obvious interpretation should be correct. KISS: Keep it simple, stupid. Crayons are more useful than keyboards for understanding pointers - draw pictures before you code. First make it work. Then you can worry about making it fast. Brooks' Law: Adding manpower to a late software project only makes it later. Law of Conservation of Program Size: If you make your code shorter, make your comments longer. The user is part of every system. When the user fails, the system has failed.