* You are the books you read, the films you watch, the music you listen to, the people you spend time with, the conversations you engage in. Choose wisely what you feed your mind.
* [Lucas Medeiros Reis](https://dev.to/iamlucasmreis/the-single-most-important-driver-of-software-quality) - The Single Most Important Driver Of Software Quality
* don't change code you don't understand
* never merge a branch with known defects
* use checklists to make sure the whole problem is solved
* [Ozan Onay](https://blog.bradfieldcs.com/you-are-not-google-84912cf44afb) - You Are Not Google
* Don’t even start considering solutions until you **Understand** the problem. Your goal should be to “solve” the problem mostly within the problem domain, not the solution domain.
* Consider a candidate solution, then read the **Paper** if there is one.
* Determine the **Historical context** in which the candidate solution was designed or developed.
* Weigh **Advantages** against disadvantages. Determine what was de-prioritized to achieve what was prioritized.
* **Think!** Soberly and humbly ponder how well this solution fits your problem. What fact would need to be different for you to change your mind? For instance, how much smaller would the data need to be before you’d elect not to use Hadoop?
* [O'reilly](http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Contributions_Appearing_in_the_Book) - contributions appearing in book 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know
* [Kent Beck](https://twitter.com/KentBeck/statuses/499584833929367552) - If you break a problem into sub-problems and the sub-problems aren't simpler than the original problem, git reset --hard and try again
* [Johannes Seitz](https://twitter.com/Ookami86/statuses/515483645663252480) - Software Engineering best practice: Actually understand what you’re doing. Unfortunately it’s rarely used in practice.
* [Stuart Halloway](https://twitter.com/stuarthalloway/statuses/502906568569286657) - the #1 source of software defects is easy presumption. Presume nothing.
* "Worried that TDD will slow down your programmers? Don't. They probably need slowing down." [J. B. Rainsberger](https://twitter.com/jbrains/statuses/167297606698008576)
* [Tim Lister](https://twitter.com/abt_programming/statuses/538015028574945280) - If you don't get innate pleasure from writing code, it's time to move on
* [Paul Graham](https://twitter.com/ValaAfshar/statuses/538015468146393088) - Don't let other people tell you the problems you're working on don't matter. People are frequently mistaken about this.
* [Meir Lehman](https://twitter.com/CodeWisdom/status/921139649661284352) - An evolving system increases its complexity unless work is done to reduce it.
* [Vala Afshar](https://twitter.com/ValaAfshar/statuses/537441340842582017) - Tell people where you're going and why. Some may volunteer their time and effort to help you get there sooner.
* [Goethe](https://twitter.com/ValaAfshar/statuses/537084241268727808) - The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.
* [Vala Afshar](https://twitter.com/ValaAfshar/statuses/536662076924915712) - The best way to achieve mediocrity is by often choosing the path of least resistance.
* [Roy Osing](https://talentculture.com/11-ways-to-lose-yourself-in-the-crowd/) - Anti principles (Don't do this !) / 11 Ways To Lose Yourself In The Crowd
* [Martin Fowler](https://twitter.com/abt_programming/statuses/531036428948738048) - When you feel the need to write a comment, first try to refactor the code so that any comment becomes superfluous
* [Andy Hunt & Dave Thomas](https://twitter.com/nicolopigna/status/921280768697143296) - the original DRY principle : "Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation, within a system"
* Business software implementation and development is unpredictable. There will always be things to alter timeline and priorities. [Tina Marie Parker](https://twitter.com/Nozeyparkers/status/922403525950353409)
* As a developer you should strive to at least understand one level of abstraction deeper than you work on - [Scott Davis](https://twitter.com/danielbryantuk/status/919866216222724096)
* Keep your code absolutely simple. Keep looking at your functions and figure out how you simplify further - [John Romero](https://twitter.com/CodeWisdom/status/926568192729894912)
* Fix it immediately, but plan for the future fix. Document the fix. Automate the solution. [Adam Bertram](https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/it-ops/troubleshooting-tips)
* You can’t go fast when everyone is spending their time fighting with the poor decisions of yesterday - [Adam Chester](https://twitter.com/adamchester/status/925479016798109696)
* [Shirky Principle](https://twitter.com/OlafLewitz/statuses/560711454434025472) : Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.
* [David McRaney](https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/) - Confirmation Bias : Your opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information which confirmed what you believed while ignoring information which challenged your preconceived notions.
* [David McRaney](https://youarenotsosmart.com/2013/05/23/survivorship-bias/) - Survivorship Bias : When failure becomes invisible, the difference between failure and success may also become invisible.
* [David McRaney](https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/) - Procrastination is fueled by weakness in the face of impulse and a failure to think about thinking.
* [David McRaney](https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/05/19/fanboyism-and-brand-loyalty/) - Fanboyism and Brand Loyalty : You prefer the things you own because you rationalize your past choices to protect your sense of self. The Internet changed the way people argue.
* [Charity Majors](https://twitter.com/rynchantress/status/778702826578911233) - Don't make production decisions just because you want to learn Go. That's what your Saturdays are for.
* [Charity Majors](https://twitter.com/mipsytipsy/status/778970572835270656) - experiment on dev tools, or in your 20% time, or off hour, NOT IN THE CRITICAL PATH
* [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence) - Chesterton's fence : the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood.
* [Dave Rupert](https://daverupert.com/2018/04/eponymous-laws-of-tech) - (2018) The Eponymous Laws of Tech | A compendium of tech-related laws, fallacies, and other wisdom
* [Thomas Nyambati](https://medium.com/rackbrains/https-medium-com-thomas-nyambati-how-to-avoid-handover-nightmares-aea38d9a3793) - (2017) How to Avoid Handover Nightmares | I totally adhere to those principles in my daily work... they are well known but still deserve a reminder :-) ...
* [MorganGeek](https://twitter.com/MorganGeek/statuses/420907517934178304) - Problem solving / Productivity : Good programmers write code after they found the solution. Un bon programmeur ne commence à coder qu'après avoir trouvé une solution.
* [MorganGeek](https://twitter.com/MorganGeek/statuses/450614047608934400) - Productivity : To find a solution, first eliminate the impossible ones. Astuce : Trouver la solution en éliminant d'abord les non solutions.
* [MorganGeek](https://twitter.com/MorganGeek/statuses/450218285129531392) - Readability / Reusability : If you wan write a 100 lines function, you can also replace it with a dozen more legible functions
* Market yourself. You're putting on the effort, make sure you show it
* Go right to the point
* Ask why
* Keep your ability to be amazed by things and people, they won't last forever
* Act to fight perfectionism
* Take advantage of any opportunities that present themselves
* Physical and visual contact rather than emails, sms, chat
* Accept people as they are
* Select your friends
* More slow, minder stress
* Remain calm and quiet about everything which you will experience
* Reinvent yourself, evolve
* Grow and progress in love, work, leisure
* Be yourself, know yourself
* Be curious, observe and play (mentally, physically) with what surrounds you
* Be positive
* Be realistic, concrete
* Understand your goals and others' goals
* Taking notes, writing things down is a way to free your mind and not forget or lose anything. It's also a way to train your senses of observation and reflection
* when times get tough, if people run away from the process instead of towards it, it's broken. And when people are freaking out, they run away from complexity and towards simplicity. [Source](https://critter.blog/2021/01/07/a-simple-process-beats-a-perfect-process/)
* No broken window. A repo should always be in a clean and working state, i.e the last commit should always build successfully.
* If you broke it, take ownership for the repair. If you break something, you are responsible of the situation, fix it (it's ok to ask for help).
* Avoid branching/batching your changes | Be careful what you batch. Changes and version bumps should be integrated continuously, not all at once.
* Don't hide your work, branch instead, and get it reviewed before creating a PR / merging it.
* If possible, don't branch, work on trunk/main. Branching/Feature flags can help.
* Use Peer code review, if possible pre-commit reviews. Peer code review is a key element in building a robust and egoless engineering culture of collaborative problem-solving ([source](https://semaphoreci.com/blog/cicd-pipeline))
* If you change the principles/systems/processess, do it incrementally. Developer productivity matters a lot. Minimize friction. e.g don't do a migration of all CI/CD Ecosystem in a way that breaks everything for a while. Do it step by step, phase the changes. Make it possible to rollback easily to previous working state.
* Quality first | Quality is always right. If you’re doing CI and for some reason the integration fails, that means the broken build becomes the highest priority to fix before continuing to add more features. System quality—not just velocity—is important. CI works in three simple stages: push, test, and fix. But despite this simplicity, CI might become challenging if only a few members of the team practice it. Consequently, CI also requires a change in culture and support from management. [source](https://stackify.com/what-is-cicd-whats-important-and-how-to-get-it-right/)
* Refactoring can only truly begin once you've actually learned what a piece of code or some data structure did, the unique properties for which they were written or chosen. Anything else is setting yourself up for failure. [source](https://ferd.ca/lessons-learned-while-working-on-large-scale-server-software.html)
* It also means that when building systems, you should not assume that operators will do things correctly. Expect failure from people. Try to think about tools you can give them to undo their mistakes, because they will happen sooner or later. Have some dread. Be understanding. Know things won't be perfect. [source](https://ferd.ca/lessons-learned-while-working-on-large-scale-server-software.html)
* Use right tools for the job (email != todo list, PR and commits != code documentation, Jenkins != long term storage for releases/versions/build info/state of quality of your code)
* Write less code, read more. Read more code, tips, manuals, blogs, articles, watch presentations and listen to podcasts about your programming craft. Learn from others prior to writing bugs.
* Learn how to write clean code, and repeat. So when you will have to rush, you will not forget to do your work right, and you will naturally provide more quality work. Also you will tend to detect issues earlier before they hit production, i.e during reviews, and writing better code will lead the whole team in getting a better codebase you can all be proud of, which mean work will become more agreeable.
* You don't want heroes, but you might benefit from experts / excellents colleagues / colleagues & managers that provide support and insights and who do not let you take everyting on your plate.
* Don't be overconfident. Some tasks look simple at first glance, but it can hide some challenges. Take the time needed to run your analysis and estimate the effort after you have checked all possible impacts you could check. Overestimating is one thing, but underestimating the effort and challenge can really lead to getting cascade issues and mistakes that would add a lot of pressure on every team and lead then to rushing even more and causing even bigger mistakes.
* Stay positive. Focus on what is doing ok, what you have accomplished. Focus your brain attention more often on something that is stress free.
* Limit your coffee intake. Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email. [source](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140805002649-50578967-how-successful-people-stay-calm/)
* Sleep. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present. Stressful projects often make you feel as if you have no time to sleep, but taking the time to get a decent night’s sleep is often the one thing keeping you from getting things under control. [source](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140805002649-50578967-how-successful-people-stay-calm/)
* Look for help | Use your support system. It’s tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself. To be calm and productive, you need to recognize your weaknesses and ask for help when you need it. This means tapping into your support system when a situation is challenging enough for you to feel overwhelmed. Everyone has someone at work and/or outside work who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help them get the best from a difficult situation. Identify these individuals in your life and make an effort to seek their insight and assistance when you need it. Something as simple as talking about your worries will provide an outlet for your anxiety and stress and supply you with a new perspective on the situation. Most of the time, other people can see a solution that you can’t because they are not as emotionally invested in the situation. Asking for help will mitigate your stress and strengthen your relationships with those you rely upon. [source](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140805002649-50578967-how-successful-people-stay-calm/)
* Breathe. The practice of being in the moment with your breathing will begin to train your brain to focus solely on the task at hand and get the stress monkey off your back. When you’re feeling stressed, take a couple of minutes to focus on your breathing. Close the door, put away all other distractions, and just sit in a chair and breathe. The goal is to spend the entire time focused only on your breathing, which will prevent your mind from wandering. Think about how it feels to breathe in and out. This sounds simple, but it’s hard to do for more than a minute or two. It’s all right if you get sidetracked by another thought; this is sure to happen at the beginning, and you just need to bring your focus back to your breathing. If staying focused on your breathing proves to be a real struggle, try counting each breath in and out until you get to 20, and then start again from 1. Don’t worry if you lose count; you can always just start over. [source](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140805002649-50578967-how-successful-people-stay-calm/)
* [Shower Thoughts](https://twitter.com/TheWeirdWorld/status/930155807651528706) - Don’t forget to drink water, get sunlight, and that we are basically a house plant with complicated feelings.
