Aphorisms

Wikipedia defines an aphorism as a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle.

Software engineering has a ton of aphorisms, and I always find myself referring back to them. Here's a list with some of my favorite ones.

  • The entire history of software engineering is that of the rise in levels of abstraction - Grady Booch
  • Don't repeat yourself. (DRY)
  • Keep it simple, stupid. (KISS)
  • Developers are drawn to complexity like moths to a flame often with the same result. -Neal Ford
  • Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand. - Martin Fowler
  • Premature optimization is the root of all evil - Donald Knuth
  • Make the change easy. Then make the easy change. – Kent Beck
  • An abstraction provides a higher level vocabulary that shields the user from the underlying complexity - Gregor Hohpe