Julio Santos

Guy Kawasaki has blogged about lies from CEOs, engineers, VCs and even his own.

Though he already covered the lies of engineers, those lies seemed more like something an engineering team as a whole, would tell to outsiders (customers, suits, whatever) but not a list of lies programmers tell each other. Here’s my list of top lies individual programmers tell. Some I’ve used, some I hate to hear, some are just sad.

1- I can do this in 3 weeks
Translation: I have no idea how long it’s going to take, but it seems hard enough so it’s going to take *at least* three weeks for me to understand it, then I’ll have a better idea of how long *it’s going to* take…maybe.

2- I program better when I program alone, no need no stinking pair programming or code reviews
Translation: I’m afraid of exposing my thought process to my peers. Maybe they’ll see I’m not as smart as I like to pretend I am.

3- I’m not afraid of offshoring
Translation: I’m scared shitless of offshoring, and of open source, and anything that forces me to evolve or become obsolete.

4- I don’t need to test my code, that’s why we have a QA department
Translation: I don’t like to test my code

5- I would never work for Microsoft
Translation: Microsoft never made me a good enough offer

6- I enjoy working in a team
Translation: I have no choice but work in a team. I hate people, that’s why I chose a profession that involves spending 12 hours a day staring at a screen.

7- I’m 90% done with this feature
Translation: I’m starting to see what this feature is about, code is even compiling now.

8- I’m done with this feature
Translation: I’m done with the fun part of coding. Now I only need to document it, refactor, test, update designs, check for leaks, and all that other stuff.

9- It’s a feature
Translation: It’s a bug

10- There’s no way that feature can be done
Translation: That feature seems boring

11- My code editor/OS/language is the best
Translation: I only know how to use my code editor/OS/language

12- I rather code than go on a date
Translation: I have no hope of getting a date

13- Interview questions at Google are stupid
Translation: I failed most interview questions they ask at Google

14- I’ve been programming since I was 7
Translation: When I was a pre-teen, I used to go to the local Radio Shack, and type on one of them TRS-80’s they had on display:

10 PRINT "YOU SUCK"
20 GOTO 10
RUN

15- Good idea boss, I’ll start right away
Translation: Whatever