Authors:

Joel Spolsky Quotes - Page 2

All Quotes Business Design Writing
All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky.

All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky.

Joel Spolsky
Degrees, Abstraction
Joel Spolsky (2004). “Joel on Software”, p.199, Apress

We just have to come in every morning and somehow, launch the editor.

Joel Spolsky
Morning, Editors, Programming
"Fire And Motion". Article by Joel Spolsky, www.joelonsoftware.com. January 6, 2002.

If you are a programmer working in 2006 and you don’t know the basics of characters, character sets, encodings, and Unicode, and I catch you, I’m going to punish you by making you peel onions for six months in a submarine.

Joel Spolsky
Character, Six, Onions

Watching nonprogrammers trying to run software companies is like watching someone who doesn’t know how to surf trying to surf. Even if he has great advisers standing on the shore telling him what to do, he still falls off the board again and again.

Joel Spolsky
Running, Fall, Trying

Not having a schedule is OK if it's your PhD and you plan to spend 14 years on the thing, or if you're a programmer working on the next Duke Nukem and we'll ship when we're good and ready. But for almost any kind of real business, you just have to know how long things are going to take, because developing a product costs money.

Joel Spolsky
Real, Years, Long

Last week I was listening to a podcast on Hanselminutes, with Robert Martin talking about the SOLID principles... They all sounded to me like extremely bureaucratic programming that came from the mind of somebody that has not written a lot of code, frankly.

Joel Spolsky
Talking, Listening, Mind
"The StackOverflow Podcast #38" with Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood, stackoverflow.fogbugz.com. January 22, 2009.

Remember, just because Microsoft can do something, doesn't mean you can. Microsoft makes their own gravity. Normal rules don't apply to them.

Joel Spolsky
Mean, Microsoft, Normal
Joel Spolsky (2004). “Joel on Software”, p.324, Apress

Common programmer thought pattern: there are only three numbers: 0, 1, and n.

Joel Spolsky
Numbers, Three, Patterns

Indeed one of the best ways to deflect attacks is to make it look like they're succeeding. It's the software equivalent of playing dead.

Joel Spolsky
Looks, Way, Succeed

The secret of Big Macs is that they're not very good, but every one is not very good in exactly the same way.

Joel Spolsky
Secret, Way, Bigs
"Big Macs vs. The Naked Chef". www.joelonsoftware.com. January 18, 2001.

Full service brokers, in this day and age of low cost mutual funds and discount brokers, are really nothing more than machines for ripping off retail investors.

Joel Spolsky
Age, Retail, Cost
"Wall Street Survival 101". www.joelonsoftware.com. May 20, 2005.

I've been using Vista on my home laptop since it shipped, and can say with some conviction that nobody should be using it as their primary operating system - it simply has no redeeming merits to overcome the compatibility headaches it causes.

Joel Spolsky
Home, Overcoming, Laptops

You May Also Like: