There's a subtle reason that programmers always want to throw away the code and start over. The reason is that they think the old code is a mess. [...] The reason that they think the old code is a mess is because of a cardinal, fundamental law of programming: It's harder to read code than to write it.
Joel SpolskyTalk to your customers. Find out what they need. Don't pay any attention to the competition. They're not relevant to you.
Joel SpolskyIf something seems possible, that's probably because someone is already doing it. When something seems that it can't possibly work, nobody tries it. Real innovation happens when someone tries anyway, overlooking an obvious flaw, and finds a way to make an idea work.
Joel SpolskyIf you are a programmer working in 2006 and you donโt know the basics of characters, character sets, encodings, and Unicode, and I catch you, Iโm going to punish you by making you peel onions for six months in a submarine.
Joel SpolskySoftware development takes immense intellectual effort. Even the best programmers can rarely sustain that level of effort for more than a few hours a day. Beyond that, they need to rest their brains a bit, which is why they always seem to be surfing the Internet or playing games when you barge in on them.
Joel Spolsky