expletive inserted Does cursing make you feel better?

Some Things You Will Only Learn By Screwing Up

In horseshit, humor, idiocy, technology on 7 August 2008 with no comments

1. Don’t use an UPDATE or DELETE statement on a live, critical database from a query browser. Inevitably, you will forget to highlight the WHERE clause. The more time passes that you haven’t screwed this up, the more likely and damaging it will be when you do.
2. Don’t use email addresses in test data that resolve to a domain you don’t control. Yes, someone owns balls.com. And they probably have a catch all set up so they are getting those test orders ass@balls.com seems to keep placing.
3. Don’t use personally identifiable data for testing. That goes for your info and your customers’.
4. Delete nothing. Archive everything. Version control is a necessity, not a luxury.
5. When writing email replies, especially serious replies about serious stuff, first remove everyone from the To:, CC:, and BCC: lists. Write your message. Save it. Spell check it. Proof it. Then, once you are satisfied with your reply, fill in the recipient lists. This is great to prevent premature-emailculation, a serious problem that affects up to 70% of email users.
6. Junk food and cigarettes don’t actually make you feel better. Water, cursing, and walking do. Having a seat near the free soda and cookies is not a boon.
7. If you can’t do it without a mouse, it’s probably not worth doing (unless you are a designer, artist, or talking about games). Your hands will thank you too.
8. Your users might be idiots, but you are an asshole for not providing them with an interface so easy to use that even an idiot could figure it out.
9. A fish bowl does not a good drainage system make.
10. There was something else, but I forget. I guess ‘Write good ideas down somewhere’ will have to sit in the tenth slot for the time being.

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