Important programming truths

From : http://liw.fi/programming-truths/

 

   This page contains a number of important programming truths that every budding programmer should know about. These truths are self-evident, and need no explanations.

• If it compiles, it works.
• If it compiles, it's correct.
• If it runs, it doesn't have any bugs.
• If it doesn't have any immediately obvious bugs, it's perfect.
• If a bug doesn't show, it doesn't exist.
• If it seems to work, it works.
• Doing something right is easy. Avoiding errors only takes a bit of concentration.
• The shorter the source code, the faster the program.
• It's obvious how to optimize a program.
• Prorammers don't make mistakes.
• Run-time errors don't occur.
• Users don't make mistakes.
• I don't make mistakes.
• Errors of any kind are rare.
• Error handling can be done in version 2.
• It's OK to crash on bad input.
• It's OK to give incorrect output on bad input.
• Portability isn't useful.
• All the world's a VAX. Or, these days, an MS-DOS box
• The length of the feature list is important.
• Speed is good, features are better.
• Slowness can be fixed in hardware.
• The bigger a program is, the better it is.
• Random changes to a program fix bugs.
• Testing takes only a short while.
• Finding bugs is easy. Fixing bugs is trivial.
• Bug-fixes don't need to be tested.
• Trivial changes of any kind don't need to be tested.
• The first approach, idea, or version is always the best.
• A 1% crash rate is actually pretty darn good.
• Code is self-evident. Comments aren't needed.
• Comments are meant for people other than the original author of the code.
• Undocumented features are fun and useful.
• It can always be fixed in the next version.
• Surprised users are happy users.
• Demonstrating for clients is the best debugging method.