Quotes from Ron Jeffries

I just give the class what I understand of what it wants, and keep an eye on it to see what it wants next.

Always implement things when you actually need them, never when you foresee that you need them.

Agile is simple—it just isn't easy.

software people are terrible at estimating, because humans are terrible at estimating. Let's not just try harder. Let's find a better way.

During planning, especially short-term planning, it's tempting to set up "stretch goals" or to "encourage" the team to do "just one more feature." Please do not do this. It's devastatingly destructive. The reason is that the team will in fact try. Eager to please, they'll unconsciously hurry. They'll leave out just a few tests. They'll leave the code not quite as clean as they might have, just to squeeze in one more feature.

Keeping the design good as it changes is called refactoring.

Always work on the highest possible value next.

we want value, we want value soon, and we want highest value first.

The first thing we know about any project is the deadline—at

When we use a language, we should commit ourselves to knowing it, being able to read it, and writing it idiomatically.