12 June 2017 - Embedded Artistry

12 June 201714 December 2021

Hofstadter’s Law

In a previous blog post I highlighted Murphy's Law, which famously states "Everything that can go wrong, will". Today I will introduce you to Hofstadter's Law, another useful tool for programmers to keep in mind. Hofstadter's law states: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. This law …

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We get a huge benefit from making a simple commitment: Don’t miss deadlines. The benefit is that once we agree to the deadline, we don’t have to worry about it anymore. We don’t have to negotiate, come up with excuses or even stress about it. It won’t ship when it’s perfect. It will ship because we said it would. Once this is clear, the quality of what we ship goes way up. Instead of spending time and energy looking for reasons, excuses or deniability, we simply do the work. And over time, we get better at figuring out which deadlines to promise. Because if we promise, we ship.