Programming Promises

A few days after reading Ted Neward’s post about checking your politics at the door and using the right tool for the job, I read this post from “Reed Me” over at Microsoft. Granted, Reed has a point. There’s no one you’ve paid money to (unless, as he points out in his comment, you paid for support) that will update your Time Zone tables for you in order to accommodate the 2007 changes. However, the tone of his post irked me and I had to reply. I won’t go into the details of our back and forth here (you can read our thread at his blog here), but it did make me think of what I think a good programmer should be. So here are my Programming Promises:

• I promise to get the job done.
• I promise to use whatever tools I need to, regardless of politics.
• I promise to listen to the Closed Source and Open Source zealots equally, and then dismiss them.
• I promise to support, as long as I am able, any closed source applications I may release.
• I promise to release open source any applications I can not, or will not, support.
• I promise to learn as many languages and libraries as possible, regardless of politics.
• I promise to engage with as many other programmers as possible, both in person and online, in order to learn from them; regardless of politics.
• I promise to not bash Microsoft nor GNU, nor others like them, everyone has a place in our industry.
• I promise to use both Windows and Linux, both have their uses.
• I promise to ask questions when I don’t know the answer, and answer questions when I do.
• I promise to learn from my mistakes, and to try to the first time.
• I promise to listen to any idea, however crazy it may sound.

That’s all I have for now, I’ll share more as I think of them. What other Programming Promises are you willing to make?