Quotes About Accountability

If you claim a standard, you have to live by it. Win or lose. Else the standard never meant nothing.

Professionals speak truth to power. Professionals have the courage to say no to their managers. How do you say no to your boss? After all, it's your boss! Aren't you supposed to do what your boss says? No. Not if you are a professional. Slaves are not allowed to say no. Laborers may be hesitant to say no. But professionals are expected to say no. It's the only way you can really get anything done.

Writing clean code is what you must do in order to call yourself a professional. There is no reasonable excuse for doing anything less than your best.

Whatever else a TODO might be, it is not an excuse to leave bad code in the system.

It is no longer sufficient that every programmer does what is right in their own eyes. Some disciplines, standards, and ethics will come. The decision before us today is whether we programmers will define them for ourselves or have them forced upon us by those who don't know us.

Robert C. Martin

As an engineer, you have a depth of knowledge about your systems and projects that no managers can possibly have. With that knowledge comes the responsibility to act.

Il campo @author di un Javadoc ci dice chi siamo. Siamo gli autori. E una caratteristica degli autori è che hanno dei lettori. In effetti, è responsabilità degli autori riuscire a comunicare bene coi loro lettori. La prossima volta che scriverete una riga di codice, ricordatevi che voi ne siete gli autori, e che scrivete a dei lettori che vi giudicheranno per quello che avrete scritto.

Remember, as a software developer, you are a stakeholder. You have a stake in the software that you need to safeguard. That's part of your role, and part of your duty. And it's a big part of why you were hired.

Professionals are often heroes, but not because they try to be. Professionals become heroes when they get a job done well, on time, and on budget.

What would happen if you allowed a bug to slip through a module, and it cost your company $10,000? The nonprofessional would shrug his shoulders, say "stuff happens," and start writing the next module. The professional would write the company a check for $10,000!

The thoroughly guilty man has an advantage over all of us; he cannot be found more guilty of anything, since he has already found himself guilty of everything. This may sound like an absurdity - causing oneself extreme pain in order not to feel any number of little pains of lesser guilts and shames, but it has its own logic. A man more easily adapts to what he inflicts upon himself; as to his own judgement, he is already committed to it and willing to live with it.

The implication, in the minds of some, was that it certainly appeared that Fletcher wanted to be sure someone else was in change when the fatal blow struck his task force.

Do not overstep your bounds. Do what you are assigned to do, to the best of your abilities, and never do more. To think that by doing more you are doing better is a common blunder. It is never good to seem to be trying too hard—it is as if you were covering up some deficiency. Fulfilling a task that has not been asked of you just makes people suspicious. If you are a crown-keeper, be a crown-keeper. Save your excess energy for when you are not in the court.

Nunca haga lo que otros pueden hacer por usted.

Occasional mistakes are inevitable—the world is just too unpredictable. People of power, however, are undone not by the mistakes they make, but by the way they deal with them.

It is an extremely human response to not look inward after a mistake or crime, but rather to look outward and to affix blame and guilt on a convenient object.

Excuses satisfy no one and apologies make everyone uncomfortable. The mistake does not vanish with an apology; it deepens and festers. Better to cut it off instantly, distract attention from yourself, and focus attention on a convenient scapegoat before people have time to ponder your responsibility or your possible incompetence.

Judge people by their actions.

Being a leader of even the smallest group gives you something to live up to: people are watching you, judging you, depending on you. To lose your composure would make it hard for you to live with yourself.

People rarely believe that their problems arise from their own misdeeds and stupidity. Someone or something out there is to blame-the other, the world, the gods- and so salvation comes from the outside as well.

It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.

Now, if any fundamental assumption underlies our system, it is that guilt is personal and not inheritable.

But none of these men before you acted in minor parts. Each of them was entrusted with broad discretion and exercised great power. Their responsibility is correspondingly great and may not be shifted to that fictional being, "the State", which cannot be produced for trial, cannot testify, and cannot be sentenced.