There's a subtle reason that programmers always want to throw away the code and start over. The reason is that they think the old code is a mess. [...] The reason that they think the old code is a mess is because of a cardinal, fundamental law of programming: It's harder to read code than to write it.

Joel Spolsky

Categorized in : Thinking Writing Law

Listen to your customers, not your competitors.

Joel Spolsky

competitors business motivational

Nothing works better than just improving your product.

Joel Spolsky

improving products business

Usability is not everything. If usability engineers designed a nightclub, it would be clean, quiet, brightly lit, with lots of places to sit down, plenty of bartenders, menus written in 18-point sans-serif, and easy-to-find bathrooms. But nobody would be there. They would all be down the street at Coyote Ugly pouring beer on each other.

Joel Spolsky

coyotes ugly beer

Every day that we spent not improving our products was a wasted day.

Joel Spolsky

improving products business

Software development takes immense intellectual effort. Even the best programmers can rarely sustain that level of effort for more than a few hours a day. Beyond that, they need to rest their brains a bit, which is why they always seem to be surfing the Internet or playing games when you barge in on them.

Joel Spolsky

playing-games surfing effort

Design adds value faster than it adds cost.

Joel Spolsky

coders design add

People ridiculously overvalue aesthetics and beauty when evaluating products. It's one of the reasons iPods, and, for that matter, Keanu Reeves, are so successful.

Joel Spolsky

ipods successful people

Talk to your customers. Find out what they need. Don't pay any attention to the competition. They're not relevant to you.

Joel Spolsky

competition attention needs

An idea isn't worth that much. It's the execution of the idea that has value. If you can't convince one other person that this is something to devote your life to, then it's not worth it.

Joel Spolsky

execution persons ideas

Life is a bit hard sometimes, and sometimes you have to step up and fight fights that you never signed up for.

Joel Spolsky

fighting steps sometimes

A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves exactly how the user thought it would.

Joel Spolsky

user-interface program wells

If your goals is to produce something of permanent value, you start to think differently about you want on the site.

Joel Spolsky

entrepreneur goal thinking

Beware of Methodologies. They are a great way to bring everyone up to a dismal, but passable, level of performance, but at the same time, they are aggravating to more talented people who chafe at the restrictions that are placed on them.

Joel Spolsky

levels people way

Writing code is not production, it's not always craftsmanship though it can be, it's design.

Joel Spolsky

programming design writing

That's another flaw with performance-based rewards: They are easy for one of your competitors to top.

Joel Spolsky

rewards flaws easy

If something seems possible, that's probably because someone is already doing it. When something seems that it can't possibly work, nobody tries it. Real innovation happens when someone tries anyway, overlooking an obvious flaw, and finds a way to make an idea work.

Joel Spolsky

innovation real ideas

Never put yourself in a position that will put yourself at risk if you make the wrong decision. We spent cash on everything. It's fashionable to make 'bet the company' decisions, but don't do it.

Joel Spolsky

cash risk decision

Shipping is a feature. A really important feature. Your product must have it.

Joel Spolsky

shipping products important

Good software, like wine, takes time.

Joel Spolsky

programming software wine

So if you want to get things done, you positively have to understand at any given point in time what is the most important thing to get done right now and if you're not doing it, you're not making progress at the fastest possible rate.

Joel Spolsky

progress important done