Calling them 'laws' is always a bit of a stretch. They are more like useful heuristics. The real engineering part is knowing exactly when to break them.

Been in Software Engineering for over 2 years now and I'm only hearing most of these named laws for the first time. Am I cooked?

Love the details sub pages. Over 20 years I collected a little list of specific laws or really observations (https://metamagic.substack.com/p/software-laws) and thought about turning each into specific detailed blog posts, but it has been more fun chatting with other engineers, showing the page and watch as they scan the list and inevitably tell me a great story. For example I could do a full writeup on the math behind this one, but it is way more fun hearing the stories about the trying and failing to get second re-writes for code.

9. Most software will get at most one major rewrite in its lifetime.

You know, I mention this stuff all the time in various meetings and discussions. I read a lot of stuff on Hacker News and just have years of accumulated knowledge from the various colleagues I've worked with. Its nice to have a little reference sheet.

My favorite is "Software development isn't a code production activity, it's a knowledge acquisition activity."

> When I first started, I was enamored with technology and programming and computer science. I’m over it.

Wow, that is incredibly sad to hear. I'm 40+ years in, and still love all of that.

I like to replace the bus factor with the Lottery Factor.

I actually had a college run over by a bus on the way to work in London, was very lucky and made a full recovery.

Head poking out under the main exit of the bus.

Today, I was presented with Claude's decision to include numerous goto statements in a new implementation. I thought deeply about their manual removal; years of software laws went against what I saw. But then, I realized it wouldn't matter anymore.

Then I committed the code and let the second AI review it. It too had no problem with goto's.

Claude's Law: The code that is written by the agent is the most correct way to write it.

I learned about Dunbar’s number

(~150) is the size of a community in which everyone knows each other’s identities and roles.

In anthropology class. You can ask someone to write down the name of everyone they can think of, real or fictional, live or dead and most people will not make it to 250.

Some individuals like professional gossip columnists or some politicians can remember as many as 1,000 people.

> Get it working correctly first, then make it fast, then make it pretty.

Or develop a skill to make it correct, fast and pretty in one or two approaches.