[vikingcaffiene]

These types of lists are nice and I appreciate the time and effort put into making them. I do wonder how much utility they provide though? I personally find it a bit overwhelming. Like is idea that I sit down and memorize all this stuff?

In the past when lists like this come up I read a bit, then bookmark for later. Later never comes and now I just have this bookmark lying around amongst the thousands of others I have made over the years.

Maybe a more useful way to present this stuff is figure out a better way to give you the law relevant to the context in which you are in? For the sake of argument I could see something like this being useful:

INPUT

I am a `_developer_` working at a `_start up_` who `_needs to give_` `_an estimate_`

OUTPUT

- see Hofstadter's Law

Probably a non trivial task and I'm sure there's a law in that list that describes this phenomenon!

[jmchuster]

I think it might be more useful to think of this as a list that could help you expose "unknown unknowns". These aren't ironclad rules, but they are each a piece of gathered advice that hold some truth in some context. So if you encounter one that makes no sense, then great, that's a potential blind spot that you've transformed from an "unknown unknown" to a "known unknown".

So let's take your example of Hofstadter's Law

> It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

So your reaction to this might be one of:

- Yes, that's a funny way to put it. I've spent many years estimating projects and matching up the final time taken, and even though i've gotten better at it, i still underestimate a little on each project. Here are different patterns i've seen for how my estimates end up going wrong. Here are different approaches i use now to try to mitigate how wrong my estimates end up being.

- Huh, that's interesting. I've just started being a manager, and i've been wondering why everything seems to take longer than i expect. Am i just the only one who is bad at estimating? Or is this some kind of problem that everyone encounters. Maybe i should look up techniques or ask advice on this subject.

- I don't know what this means. Why would anyone's estimates be wrong? Writing a website is like making a ham sandwich right? Once you do it once or twice, you must be able to estimate it perfectly every time.

[GuestHNUser]

>These aren't ironclad rules, but they are each a piece of gathered advice that hold some truth in some context.

This is spot on. There is a time and a place for these "laws" which is sometimes forgotten. Don't be dogmatic about following them. They will be detrimental to a team following them blindly.

[akkartik]

I tend to agree with you about generic awesome lists, but this one seems useful as a reference. Bookmarking for the next time I can't remember what the Lindy Effect is called.

..wait, it doesn't include the Lindy Effect :D

[robbedpeter]

It's good to give it a read so you're familiar with the concepts, but then remember where the list is, or archive it so you can return to it.

Later down the line, you're going to encounter a problem and one of the ideas in the list will be helpful in framing the context of your problem. It may or may not help in finding a solution, but it can help articulate the problem to other people.

[amelius]

Amelius' law: Management will always refer to Hofstadter's law as a myth or an excuse.

[vikingcaffiene]

Heh. I have been at the butt end of that one a few times. Another favorite of mine is when they push back with Parkinson's law: work expands to meet time available for its completion.

[amelius]

I think in the future I'll just use error bars, which they may ignore at their own peril.

[GekkePrutser]

And will use the Pareto principle to cut corners