New Programmer's Survival Manual

Tip 31

Mind Your Head

[​​White Belt] Your attitude affects both your productivity and your future all day, every day.

In the 1990s Bare Bones Software released a text editor called BBEdit with the tagline “It Doesn’t Suck.” It retains the tagline to this day. Truly brilliant marketing. Who’s their market? Programmers.

Programmers are a pessimistic and sarcastic lot. The vast majority will tell you about 100 things that suck for every one thing that doesn’t. The highest praise a programmer will give a product is, “It doesn’t suck.”

Pessimist programmers are in good company. I’ve read various reports saying the vast majority of projects fail,^{[48] ...}