Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Just costs you double

Me: "just" costs you double.
Them: Huh?
Me: Every time you use "just" to describe a feature or a process it tells me you've made a gross assumption about what I'll need to do ...

That comment on a post titled All I Need Is A Programmer made me nod in agreement. "Just" is a warning sign in conversations for me, like "always", "never", and the dreaded "trust me".

All those phrases make me think of exceptions. "Always? Well, there is that edge case ...". "Just? Why 'just'? What about ..." and I begin to wonder whether the person really knows what they're talking about.

Just say 'no' to 'just'. (You knew that was coming, right?)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi

I liked you comment
"It is a common-place that medics get asked about other's illnesses at social gatherings. One traditional response is "Ooh, that looks nasty! I'd find a doctor on duty to look at it." Similarly, perhaps "hmm, sounds like a job for your IT department at work" might help?"

on http://codeclimber.blogspot.com/2008/04/all-i-need-is-programmer.html

Very cool :) It feel the same about software programming