Anybody could afford to bring a personal computer home, free from the oversight and advice of more experienced programmers and the methodology of an engineering company, and start programming on their own. And they did just that, in large numbers, learning nothing from the past and reinventing everything, over and over. Both literally and figuratively, we never looked back. Independent software companies thrived while the software divisions of hardware companies shrank, so that the modern software industry was created by people who had never been exposed to engineering rigor.

— Adam Barr, The Problem With Software

Methodology is often interpreted to mean “a set of rules to follow that guarantee success.” Methodologies don’t work like programs. People aren’t computers. Every team does XP differently with varying degrees of success.

— Kent Beck, Cynthia Andres, Extreme Programming Explained

…it’s probably much easier for someone to provide feedback on why your solution is bad than it is to come up with a fleshed out solution on their own.

— Will Larson and Tanya Reilly, Staff Engineer

When it comes to complex systems and interdependencies, moving quickly is just optics. It’s methodical movement that gets the job done.

— Will Larson and Tanya Reilly, Staff Engineer

A hacker would consider being asked to write add x to y giving z instead of z = x + y as something between an insult to his intelligence and a sin against God.

— Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters