Ask HN: What's some “one sentence” wisdom you've learned or created?
It doesn't have to be one sentence but try to be concise. Something you'd end a code review comment with or mention to a Jr dev that's easy to remember.
Today I realized "there's a fine line between credit and blame" but that's a little too pessimistic to be real advice.
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] threade.g.
"We got a letter for past-due rent yesterday, and I'm telling you now"
vs.
"We've been getting letters for past-due rent the last few months, and I'm telling you now."
(backups encrypted with a key no one has access to are not a backup)
Two is one. One is none.
Most frequent use: Justifying quotas on NAS/SAN devices. People retain more stuff when they think a shared drive has 500GB free than they do when they see 2TB free.
Meaning that you should strive to program so as to encode the structure, relationships, and qualities of the objects of your task/domain. If you do it faithfully, then your code will be logically consistent and bug-free. I think this is most directly possible in declarative programming.
Stupidity is more likely than bad actors. Usually.
Don't complain about being bored. Bored/boring means that people around you (e.g. family) aren't dying.
Sometimes in the corporate life, you imagine that X would like to have Y, and you put in a lot of effort to make Y happen. And then X is not even aware that Y took effort, or worse, you misinterpreted, and X is annoyed that Y happened. Better make sure that X really wants Y and asks for it.
It has been my experience that to change anything with an organisation takes a while. First you present your proposed change or new process. No one understands or pay attention. Once you implement and showcase the new process, expect objections as it dawns on people they might have to change how they do things. Don't take offense at the objections (which should have been aired at first meeting but no one was paying attention). Just agree to note them and then a week later present same thing you presented. Now you will find most people have processed the change and might even have tried new process or read the documentation. Now the change begins. It's a process.
This is in some ways depressing, but its always been true for me. Individual actions that are outside the realm of someones common patterns are extremely rare. So if they act in a certain way, expect that going forwards. Be cynical.
Eating the menu isn't the same as eating the meal. (I believe from fritz pearls).
Thinking is hard that's why most people go straight to judgement. (C Jung)
There's nothing more disgusting that a person with tons of resources (money, time, imagination) but who has no taste. (Paraphrase of Goethe)
To eager business leads saying that a software or service is too expensive and we should build it internally instead...
Many SAP and Oracle-software (not the DB, the other stuff) implementations fail, and take years to do so, after costing as much as building in house would have (and likely succeeded).
For some things, it's true - but I wouldn't consider this "generally applicable wisom"
Everything changes when you're in motion.
- You impact your environment, regardless of your participation, and even your presence
- Perception is a weak approximation for reality
- Value the opportunity to be wrong, because eventually you'll lose the privilege of being told so
- The greatest barrier to getting things done, is not doing things
Life does not always make sense, sometimes best efforts and best preparation fail. That is okay
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life."