Famous Last Words

If you’re a software developer for long enough, you’ll hear certain things throughout your career that almost never, ever, ever turn out to be true. Here’s a partial list of some of the more popular lies and simply wrong things you’ll hear.

• “Every bug fixed will have a unit test demonstrating that it is fixed.”

• “All APIs will have complete and accurate documentation.”

• “We always write a complete spec before beginning the implementation.”

• “The feature set is frozen now.”

• “100% backward compatible!”

• “We have included time for writing tests and debugging on the schedule.”

• “If the code you’re working on has some completely minor and unimportant detail that I personally disagree with, everything will completely break and the world will end.”

• “Remember that time six months ago when I said it would break the world if you did it your way and you gave in and did it my way? We just got a bug from a customer, and it turns out we should have done it your way in the first place. Can you rewrite it that way by Friday? Thanks!”

• “Yes, I tested that code, which doesn’t compile, before I submitted it.”

• “Purify is too expensive.”

• “This error is an unlikely corner case, so we don’t have to handle it.”

….any others? Add yours below. It’s also worth mentioning the following somewhat related topbot lists: worst commenting practices, new Windows API features, and the ever-popular (and accurate!) all software sucks list.