seecretGeek has a nice blog entry about the three laws of Software Development, inspired by Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics (minor adaptations from me):

  1. A developer must write code that creates value.
  2. A developer must make their code easy to maintain, except where such expenditure will conflict with the first law.
  3. A developer must reduce their code to the smallest size possible, as long as such reduction does not conflict with the first two laws.

That’s about all there is to software development. Print this out, make copies for all your coworkers, and engrave it in stone plates so that our childrens children will still be able to live by these timeless wisdoms!