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