Monday, October 1, 2007

Lamont Adams' Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming

  1. Accept your mistakes - the important thing is to locate and deal with them in a timely manner.
  2. Do not invest your emotions in your code - this can lead you to taking critiques of your code personally.
  3. Seek out the input of others - programming is a collective effort.
  4. Consult your colleagues before you rewrite a sequence of code. Any such revisions should be part of a team-based review process.
  5. Show deference to those who know less than you about a project. To show impatience reinforces a stereotype of developers as egotistical prima donnas.
  6. Be open to new technological developments - the world of programming changes rapidly, and you need to keep up to date. You should welcome new developments as opportunities to improve your work.
  7. Knowledge is the only real determinant of authority on a software project - you should defer to anyone better informed than you, regardless of their place in the pecking order.
  8. Understand that sometimes your ideas will not be accepted. This is part of the experience of being a team member. Don't make a big deal of it if it turns out later that you were right.
  9. Work in an open, collaborative environment. Those who code alone tend to be less effective than others.
  10. Criticize code rather than programmers. Your critique should be positive in tone and should be for the purpose of improving the code.

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