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Falsehoods Programmers Believe
“There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.”
…and some guidelines for further edge-case in Practical International Data Management
A falsehood list about falsehood lists:
- I'll never need to learn a falsehood list, so I can skip it.
- A falsehood list is complete at the time of writing.
- OK, but it will surely get updated with new falsehoods and clarifications.
- Skimming the falsehood list is all I need to do to learn it.
- OK, but surely I'll remember to recheck the falsehood list once I actually need to, right?
- If a falsehood doesn't immediately make sense to me, there must be something wrong with it, despite the author having domain expertise that I don't.
- “Edge cases” live only at the edges; they never creep into the middle.
1)
“Many of these falsehoods aren’t things that only programmers believe, but widespread societal misconceptions.”