Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I’ll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems. — Jamie Zawinski in comp.lang.emacs.

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."

Comment snipped from http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/88568/yes_mother_i_really_w...

From http://lists.ethernal.org/oldarchives/cantlug-0211/msg00174.html:

>
> There is an entire development methodology (whose name escapes me at the
> moment) that makes use of that very phenomenon.

We called it the Rubber Duck method of debugging. It goes like this:

1) Beg, borrow, steal, buy, fabricate or otherwise obtain a rubber duck
(bathtub variety)
2) Place rubber duck on desk and inform it you are just going to go over
some code with it, if that's all right.
3) Explain to the duck what you code is supposed to do, and then go into
detail and explain things line by line
4) At some point you will tell the duck what you are doing next and then
realise that that is not in fact what you are actually doing. The duck

http://bret.appspot.com/entry/how-friendfeed-uses-mysql

The Joel Test

1. Do you use source control?
2. Can you make a build in one step?
3. Do you make daily builds?
4. Do you have a bug database?
5. Do you fix bugs before writing new code?
6. Do you have an up-to-date schedule?
7. Do you have a spec?
8. Do programmers have quiet working conditions?
9. Do you use the best tools money can buy?
10. Do you have testers?
11. Do new candidates write code during their interview?
12. Do you do hallway usability testing?

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html

I was browsing around the Emacs sub-Reddit and found a few useful links for future perusal:

• Meet Emacs ($ screen cast)
• Hiding Code Blocks
• Switching between header and implementation files
• Large list of Emacs packages
• Automatically highlighting TODO, FIXME and other key words
  

At work, we're endeavoring on a project that involves low level switch programming. This article, titled "Ethernet for Programers" was posted to Reddit or Digg, and looks super useful. It's not just about packets and frames, but includes microcontrollers, SPI interfaces and the sort.