With DRY, you’re looking to minimize duplication within a system, whereas with orthogonality you reduce the interdependency among the system’s components.

If you are doing very detailed implementation and coding, read a book on design and architecture. If you are doing high-level design, read a book on coding techniques.

In the original experiment leading to the “Broken Window Theory,” an abandoned car sat for a week untouched. But once a single window was broken, the car was stripped and turned upside down within hours.

In some ways, programming is like painting.

Two or more things are orthogonal if changes in one do not affect any of the others.

Constantly review what’s happening around you, not just what you personally are doing.

Great software today is often preferable to the fantasy of perfect software tomorrow. If you give your users something to play with early, their feedback will often lead you to a better eventual solution

the easiest way to find the transformations is to start with the requirement and determine its inputs and outputs.

We’ve found that as our knowledge of the domain increases, we’re better able to make suggestions on other things that could be done to address the underlying business issues.