The evils of “just” in software development
We had a very interesting turnaround meeting (our “bastardisation” of the standup meeting) this morning in which the team decided to outlaw the word “just” and the phrase “pretty much”. The contexts are sentences like “To finish X, I just have to do A, B, C” or “I’ve pretty much finished X except A, B, C”.
These are evil words!
I have evidence (nicely collected by “Charles”:http://fishbowl.pastiche.org)
“‘Just’ is a four letter word”:http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2003/10/07/just_is_a_fourletter_word by Charles himself:
bq. ‘Just’ is a vague, almost condescending diminutive. Nine times out
of ten, it means this: ‘I do not know, but it is in my interest to estimate optimistically.’
“Lullaby Language”:http://www.ayeconference.com/Articles/LullabyLanguage.html
bq. I said, ‘Soon.’ And what that means is…” She looked at me, and I
nodded. “I think it meant, ‘I don’t know, but don’t keep bothering me.’”
“‘Can’t You Just…?’ redux”:http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3593
bq. It’s rare that a complex problem has a simple solution, or that the simple solution doesn’t have far-ranging side effects.
All highly recommended reading for any software developer – “just” trust me.
(PS the credit for this entry and the research is Charles’ – I’m just merely spreading the word more widely!)
