Programming skillz for life… and programming

1. Never schedule a meeting 30-60 minutes after you've started drinking coffee.
2. Ask for a raise based on your quality of work, not based on how much you think you deserve it.
3. If you don't clock out at the top of the hour you are more committed than 50% of your co-workers (see point #2).
4. If you clock out 45 minutes after the end of the day you are more committed than 90% of your co-workers (see point #2).
5. Don't consider gaming time as part of your work day and then complain about how many hours you need to work.  Gaming at work can be good, but it should not be counted as work.
6. If you work on Linux, learn strace.
7. If you ever do anything over a network, learn Wireshark.
8. If someone asks you for a feature, ask why they want it.
9. If you are not a good designer, don't do design.  Pay someone to do it.  (I should take this advice myself).
10. Take your own advice.
11. Usually the best answer actually is "it depends".  As long as you can answer why. 
12. Get a desktop background that is not a woman.  Sorry, but she's way out of your league and having her on your desktop makes you look like a loser.
13. Take a break (I should take this advice myself).
14. Sit under a tree without a computer.
15. Sit under a tree while programming.  Call it Green Programming and claim discrimination if someone complains.
16. Expect failure.  You're not as good as you think you are.
17. If I don't click on a link in your marketing email within 3 sends, I probably don't want your email.  Unless you're selling gear.  Then it's gadget pron.
18. Don't be an ass.  This is why I've limited my exposure to Ruby.  Seriously.  I'd like RoR more if I had met nicer developers.
19. Download the source.
20. Use the source.  Seriously.
21. Don't delete your email.  It is evidence of other's wrongdoing.
22. Managers: learn at least a few Star Wars quotes.  If you change the deliverables say "I am altering the deal.  Pray I don't alter it any further."  Star Trek quotes are OK too, but Star Trek doesn't have a lovestruck wannabe Samurai who was previously thought to be a dark lord before people knew the back-story.
23. Google is a development tool.
24. If you are in Netops, don't block access to Facebook or Twitter. We will not be more productive if you do that.  Anyway, it's the administrative assistants who waste time on there.  Plus we'll just find an open proxy and use it to get there.
25. HTTP is the worst protocol for transmitting information, except for all the others that have been tried.  Paraphrasing Winston Churchill (I think).
26. Don't expect much from the Oracle/Sun merger.  Ecclesiastes 1:9.  😉
27. When you come to an XOR in the road, AND it.

My apologies to anyone I may have inadvertently quoted.  These were all written off the top of my head but there may have been undue influences that caused the subconcious alignment of disaligned concepts.