"It is a good rule of thumb that a program should read from top to bottom in the order that it will be executed; if this is not true, watch out for the bugs that often accompany poor structure. Make your programs read from top to bottom." (Brian W Kernighan & Phillip J Plauger, "The Elements of Programming Style", 1974)
"Rule 4. Fancy algorithms are buggier than simple ones, and they're much harder to implement. Use simple algorithms as well as simple data structures." (Rob Pike, "Notes on Programming in C" , 1989)
"Rule 5. Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming." (Rob Pike, "Notes on Programming in C", 1989)
"Apart from power laws, iteration is one of the prime sources of self-similarity. Iteration here means the repeated application of some rule or operation - doing the same thing over and over again. [... ] A concept closely related to iteration is recursion. In an age of increasing automation and computation, many processes and calculations are recursive, and if a recursive algorithm is in fact repetitious, self-similarity is waiting in the wings.(Manfred Schroeder, "Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws Minutes from an Infinite Paradise", 1990)
"At the heart of reengineering is the notion of discontinuous thinking - of recognizing and breaking away from the outdated rules and fundamental assumptions that underlie operations. Unless we change these rules, we are merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We cannot achieve breakthroughs in performance by cutting fat or automating existing processes. Rather, we must challenge old assumptions and shed the old rules that made the business underperform in the first place." (Michael M Hammer, "Reengineering Work: Don't Automate, Obliterate", Magazine, 1990)
"The underlying message of all these rules is that inheritance tends to work against the primary technical imperative you have as a programmer, which is to manage complexity. For the sake of controlling complexity, you should maintain a heavy bias against inheritance." (Steve C McConnell," Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction", 1993)
"Heuristic" (it is of Greek origin) means discovery. Heuristic methods are based on experience, rational ideas, and rules of thumb. Heuristics are based more on common sense than on mathematics. Heuristics are useful, for example, when the optimal solution needs an exhaustive search that is not realistic in terms of time. In principle, a heuristic does not guarantee the best solution, but a heuristic solution can provide a tremendous shortcut in cost and time." (Nikola K Kasabov, "Foundations of Neural Networks, Fuzzy Systems, and Knowledge Engineering", 1996)
"All OO languages show some tendency to suck programmers into the trap of excessive layering. Object frameworks and object browsers are not a substitute for good design or documentation, but they often get treated as one. Too many layers destroy transparency: It becomes too difficult to see down through them and mentally model what the code is actually doing. The Rules of Simplicity, Clarity, and Transparency get violated wholesale, and the result is code full of obscure bugs and continuing maintenance problems." (Eric S Raymond, "The Art of Unix Programming", 2003)
"Software design patterns are what allow us to describe design fragments, and reuse design ideas, helping developers leverage the expertise of others. Patterns give a name and form to abstract heuristics, rules and best practices of object-oriented techniques." (Philippe Kruchten, [foreword] 2004)
"The traditional view on software architecture suffers from a number of key problems that cannot be solved without changing our perspective on the notion of software architecture. These problems include the lack of first-class representation of design decisions, the fact that these design decisions are cross-cutting and intertwined, that these problems lead to high maintenance cost, because of which design rules and constraints are easily violated and obsolete design decisions are not removed." (Jan Bosch, "Software architecture: The next step", 2004)
"A heuristic is a rule applied to an existing solution represented in a perspective that generates a new" (and hopefully better) solution or a new set of possible solutions." (Scott E Page, "The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies", 2008)
"You should choose a set of simple rules that govern the format of your code, and then you should consistently apply those rules. If you are working on a team, then the team should agree to a single set of formatting rules and all members should comply." (Robert C Martin, "Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship", 2008)
"As a general rule, implementations do not just spontaneously combust. Failures tend to stem from the aggregation of many issues. Although some issues may have been known since the early stages of the project" (for example, the sales cycle or system design), implementation teams discover the majority of problems during the middle of the implementation, typically during some form of testing." (Phil Simon, "Why New Systems Fail: An Insider's Guide to Successful IT Projects", 2010)
"Making domain concepts explicit in your code means other programmers can gather the intent of the code much more easily than by trying to retrofit an algorithm into what they understand about a domain. It also means that when the domain model evolves - which it will, as your understanding of the domain grows - you are in a good position to evolve the code. Coupled with good encapsulation, the chances are good that the rule will exist in only one place, and that you can change it without any of the dependent code being any the wiser." (Dan North [in Kevlin Henney’s "97 Things Every Programmer Should Know", 2010])
"[...] heuristics are simple, efficient rules - either hard-wired in our brains or learned - that kick in especially when we're facing problems with incomplete information." (David DiSalvo, "What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite", 2011)
"But the history of large systems demonstrates that, once the hurdle of stability has been cleared, a more subtle challenge appears. It is the challenge of remaining stable when the rules change. Machines, like organizations or organisms, that fail to meet this challenge find that their previous stability is no longer of any use. The responses that once were life-saving now just make things worse. What is needed now is the capacity to re-write the procedure manual on short notice, or even" (most radical change of all) to change goals." (John Gall, "The Systems Bible: The Beginner's Guide to Systems Large and Small"[Systematics 3rd Ed.], 2011)
"Coding standards are rules, sometimes relatively arbitrary, that define the coding styles and conventions that are considered acceptable within a team or organization. In many cases, agreeing on a set of standards, and applying them, is more important than the standards themselves." (John F Smart, "Jenkins: The Definitive Guide", 2011)
"Heuristics are simplified rules of thumb that make things simple and easy to implement. But their main advantage is that the user knows that they are not perfect, just expedient, and is therefore less fooled by their powers. They become dangerous when we forget that." (Nassim N Taleb, "Antifragile: Things that gain from disorder", 2012)
"Ultimately, software quality boils down to a matter of tradeoffs, and there's no one universal rule for how to do things. [... ] Rigidly adhering to a notion of building something 'the right way' can paralyze discussions about tradeoffs and other viable options. Pragmatism - thinking in terms of what does and doesn't work for achieving our goals - is a more effective lens through which to reason about quality." (Edmond Lau, "The Effective Engineer: How to Leverage Your Efforts In Software Engineering to Make a Disproportionate and Meaningful Impact", 2015)
"Breaking rules is indeed an important part of creativity. Innovation needs a level of guidance." (Pearl Zhu, "Digitizing Boardroom: The Multifaceted Aspects of Digital Ready Boards", 2016)
"It is not loyalty or internal motivation that drives us programmers forward. We must write our code when the road to our personal success is absolutely clear for us and writing high quality code obviously helps us move forward on this road. To make this happen, the management has to define the rules of the game, also known as process", and make sure they are strictly enforced, which is much more difficult than 'being agile'."" (Yegor Bugayenko, "Code Ahead", 2018)
"Engineering is an art of simplification, and the rules - when and how to simplify - are a matter of experience and intuition." (Olle I Elgerd)
