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Programming Things I Wish I Knew Earlier
theodp writes "Raw intellect ain't always all it's cracked up to be, advises Ted Dziuba in his introduction to Programming Things I Wish I Knew Earlier, so don't be too stubborn to learn the things that can save you from the headaches of over-engineering. Here's some sample how-to-avoid-over-complicating-things advice: 'If Linux can do it, you shouldn't. Don't use Hadoop MapReduce until you have a solid reason why xargs won't solve your problem. Don't implement your own lockservice when Linux's advisory file locking works just fine. Don't do image processing work with PIL unless you have proven that command-line ImageMagick won't do the job. Modern Linux distributions are capable of a lot, and most hard problems are already solved for you. You just need to know where to look.' Any cautionary tips you'd like to share from your own experience?"
You're not that great.
Even if you think you're the best person in your department, there are other departments.
Even if you think you're in the best department, there are other firms.
Even if your organisation's top of its league, empires rise and fall, and so will yours.
There is no silver bullet. You are no Superman. You're not going to change the world.
So shut up, listen and chill. Feel free to do your best, but remember to be nice. Money buys you hookers, but love gives you peace.