97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

ON SEPTEMBER 23, 1999, the $327.6 million Mars Climate Orbiter was lost while entering orbit around Mars due to a software error back on Earth. The error was later called the metric mix-up. The ground-station software was working in pounds, while the spacecraft expected newtons, leading the ground station to underestimate the power of the spacecraft’s thrusters by a factor of 4.45.

Most software projects are more like a long orienteering marathon. In the dark. With only a sketchy map as guidance. If you just set off in one direction, running as fast as you can, you might impress some, but you are not likely to succeed.

The programmer who comes along a few months later to work on the code will thank you. The programmer who comes along a few months later might be you.

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

Try and leave this world a little better than you found it.