"With the vote going close to the wire, several MPs who are ill were flown or wheeled in from hospital, and others, in jail for crimes such as murder and extortion, were granted temporary release."

1. Understand and accept that you will make mistakes. The point is to find them early, before they make it into production. Fortunately, except for the few of us developing rocket guidance software at JPL, mistakes are rarely fatal in our industry, so we can, and should, learn, laugh, and move on.


2. You are not your code. Remember that the entire point of a review is to find problems, and problems will be found. Don't take it personally when one is uncovered


3. No matter how much "karate" you know, someone else will always know more. Such an individual can teach you some new moves if you ask. Seek and accept input from others, especially when you think it's not needed.


4. Don't rewrite code without consultation. There's a fine line between "fixing code" and "rewriting code." Know the difference, and pursue stylistic changes within the framework of a code review, not as a lone enforcer.


5. Treat people who know less than you with respect, deference, and patience. Nontechnical people who deal with developers on a regular basis almost universally hold the opinion that we are prima donnas at best and crybabies at worst. Don't reinforce this stereotype with anger and impatience.


6. The only constant in the world is change. Be open to it and accept it with a smile. Look at each change to your requirements, platform, or tool as a new challenge, not as some serious inconvenience to be fought.


7. The only true authority stems from knowledge, not from position. Knowledge engenders authority, and authority engenders respect—so if you want respect in an egoless environment, cultivate knowledge.


8. Fight for what you believe, but gracefully accept defeat. Understand that sometimes your ideas will be overruled. Even if you do turn out to be right, don't take revenge or say, "I told you so" more than a few times at most, and don't make your dearly departed idea a martyr or rallying cry.


9. Don't be "the guy in the room." Don't be the guy coding in the dark office emerging only to buy cola. The guy in the room is out of touch, out of sight, and out of control and has no place in an open, collaborative environment.


10. Critique code instead of people—be kind to the coder, not to the code.As much as possible, make all of your comments positive and oriented to improving the code. Relate comments to local standards, program specs, increased performance, etc.

> ...it goes to illustrate that the era of excitement in IT is over.

Heh, that's true.  What used to be kind of intriguing and fun is now just
a f'in chore.  But I've still got hopes for Ubuntu.  I moved on from
FreeBSD, at least for the desktop.

       Brian

Yeah, but I couldn't find s2ram, so I couldn't get suspend working, and
didn't want to futz with hibernation.  It seemed like a poorly documented
hack that didn't inspire a lot of confidence, and I had burned way too
much time on something that should JFW.

The X40 I had worked perfectly, so again, I point the finger at Lenovo.

       Brian

The Nokia N72 is an updated version of the Nokia N70, but without the 3G functionality. Although available in a choice of black or pink, it's not really one for the girls, being typically SmartPhone-sized and weighing in at 124g. [Editor's note: we've received a complaint about this sentence, telling us that it's sexist. We'd like to apologise if we've offended anyone. However, the fact that the N72 is available in pink tells us that Nokia's marketing people were targeting women. We're not suggesting that women should buy pink phones (in fact we think they look stupid, but let's not start another argument.) Statistically, smartphones are more likely to be bought by men, and in our experience, women prefer smaller phones. We were just trying to be helpful, not sexist, but obviously we made some sexist assumptions. We're sorry if our sexist assumptions caused offence, but we stand by our statement.]