engfer(s)

So many times in the technical realm you hear people (or at least hear about them) say things that make you want to stick a spoon in your ear.

Well we put together a list of some “guidelines” we’ve found from personal experiences we’ve witnessed:

Some “Guidelines”

1. Don’t use words that you don’t understand.
2. Don’t describe your team’s software, which you don’t have any idea of how it’s made, to the client as “spaghetti code”.
3. Don’t call the help desk and tell them that the internet was uninstalled.
4. Do take some time to research problems before you talk about them to a technical fellow.
5. Don’t call the product team and tell them the system accounts are gone when you actually locked your account via multiple incorrect password attempts.
6. Don’t say that your Java class “implements the inheritance”.
7. Don’t tell anyone else that you caused an ID-10-T error.
   
8. Do say things in simple terms that you and your non-technical audience can understand.
9. Don’t flirt with the administrative assistant by talking about your problem with red-black trees.
   
10. Don’t say that your C# class is more efficient because it only has 3 functions (linky)
11. Don’t show up to an interview for a software engineering position and say that a compiler “compiles things”.
    
12. Do check your computer is plugged in before you tell someone it’s dead.
13. Don’t argue about a programming book that you’ve never read.
14. Don’t tell your boss that you’re quitting before you’ve received the former offer letter from the new company.
    
15. Don’t say you forgot everything at your first job interview out of college.
16. Don’t use the words “doodad”, “doohickey”, “doojigger”, “gubbins”, “thing”, “thingamabob”, “thingamajig”, “thingummy”, “whatchamacallit” or “whatsis” when describing a software component that you’ve created.
    

These are just some personal “guidelines” I’ve seen or dealt with. What are some you’ve experienced?