The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

We feel that the best way to deal with this is to encourage active and frequent communication

There's one technique that you must use if you want people to listen to you: listen to them. Even if this is a situation where you have all the information, even if this is a formal meeting with you standing in front of 20 suits—if you don't listen to them, they won't listen to you.

Instead of excuses, provide options.

Don't blame someone or something else, or make up an excuse.

Read a technical book each quarter. Bookstores are full of technical books on interesting topics related to your current project. Once you're in the habit, read a book a month. After you've mastered the technologies you're currently using, branch out and study some that don't relate to your project.

You're communicating only if you're conveying information. To do that, you need to understand the needs, interests, and capabilities of your audience. We've all sat in meetings where a development geek glazes over the eyes of the vice president of marketing with a long monologue on the merits of some arcane technology. This isn't communicating: it'

Have a central place in the source tree where utility routines and scripts can be deposited. And make a point of reading other people's source code and documentation, either informally or during code reviews.

every decision results in a different version of the future. How many possible futures can your code support?

We can be proud of our abilities, but we must be honest about our shortcomings—our