Don't write bugs
Superficially, &quot;Don&#x27;t write bugs&quot; really only translates to &quot;don&#x27;t be sloppy, if you&#x27;re aware of ways that your code will fail in edge cases, handle those edge cases. Develop techniques and habits that will avoid bugs, like better encapsulation.&quot;<p>However, &quot;Don&#x27;t write bugs&quot; is a joke for a seasoned programmer who&#x27;s had to work with <i>political</i> constraints. Bugs often arise from major design flaws that can&#x27;t be fixed in an afternoon. Other bugs arise from management compromises to meet a deadline or price point. Even worse, some bugs arise from problems with external APIs that are completely out of a programmer&#x27;s control. At this point, &quot;don&#x27;t write bugs&quot; can really only translate to trying to defend against corner cases that are impractical to fix.<p><i>&quot;Impractical to fix,&quot; meaning, fixing the bug requires navigating politics.</i> This could be working with a vendor to fix a broken API. It could also be working with management to allocate time to refactor a defective design.<p>Also: There are poor programmers who just can&#x27;t &quot;Don&#x27;t write bugs.&quot; They can&#x27;t think through edge cases; or a fundamentally incapable of understanding edge cases that lead to bugs. (And handling these kind of programmers is a different topic altogether.)