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20 things I believe in as a technologist

March 22nd, 2010 — other

Brooks’s law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later
Parkinson’s law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Hofstadter’s law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter’s Law into account.
Clark’s law: Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice.
Lewin’s equation: B=ƒ(P,E). An individual’s behavior is a function of both their personality and their environment.
Fast, good or cheap. Pick two.
“The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.” – Frederick P. Brooks
Flitting doesn’t work, nor does sitting tight
Attention economics
Don’t write a functional spec
Start-up metrics for pirates
The Zombie Function: micromanagers create zombies
Death by risk aversion
Fail fast, fail cheap (re: tactics, not the overall business).
Beware of future creep
To create change, you need to reach out to those who don’t already agree with you.
The 18 mistakes that kill startups
85 operations rules to live by
Things that get in the way of good software:
- Competing interest (departmental)
- Political infighting
- Lack of audience clarity
- Fuzzy strategy
- No vision for success
Aspects of good software
- Functionality: does it do what I need?
- Correctness: does it do it correctly, without a bunch of bugs?
- Learnability: can I learn it quickly? Is the manual good?
- Efficiency: does it let me do what I need without long workarounds?
- Usability: is it user-friendly?
- Intuitiveness: does it feel natural?
- Flow/enhancement: does it keep me fully engaged where the world drops away?