I stumbled over The Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming which supposedly hail from the book The Psychology of Computer Programming, and found them fascinating. I haven’t read the book but loved the idea so much that I thought I’d attempt to write down some of my thoughts. As an experiment I’ve taken the “commandments” and written my interpretations. These may or may not align with the original authors interpretation.

The Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming

1. Understand and accept that you will make mistakes.
2. You are not your code.
3. No matter how much “karate” you know, someone else will always know more.
4. Don’t re-write code without consultation.
5. Treat people who know less than you with respect, deference, and patience.
6. The only constant in the world is change.
7. The only true authority stems from knowledge, not position.
8. Fight for what you believe, but gracefully accept defeat.
9. Don’t be the “coder int he corner”.
10. Critique code instead of people – be kind to the coder, not the code.

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