Never put yourself in a position that will put yourself at risk if you make the wrong decision. We spent cash on everything. It's fashionable to make 'bet the company' decisions, but don't do it.

I've been using Vista on my home laptop since it shipped, and can say with some conviction that nobody should be using it as their primary operating system - it simply has no redeeming merits to overcome the compatibility headaches it causes.

That's another flaw with performance-based rewards: They are easy for one of your competitors to top.

A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves exactly how the user thought it would.

Software 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.

Shipping is a feature. A really important feature. Your product must have it.

Writing code is not production, it's not always craftsmanship though it can be, it's design.