[jaddison]

I'd say it can be simplified even further:

THINK before you SOLVE.

A natural tendency for programmers/developers is to move towards a knee-jerk reaction of "I'll just start coding this". It's not that good solutions don't come up from that line of thinking; it's more that - as cyman states - there are faster ways to accomplish results if you simply think about how you're going to solve the real problem(s).

Once a problem is analysed and broken down into it's appropriate tasks/needs/requirements, sometimes a credit card solves the problem faster (and better).

Oh, and when you purchase solutions, you typically can investigate APIs and system requirements beforehand. Even after purchase, most reliable solution vendors offer support/money back guarantees.

[ErrantX]

I believe this is actually a much better rule.

There is the other knee jerk (and a dangerous one) to do the reverse and just use off the shelf kit for large swathes of functionality.

We have one contractor who did just this and it currently the project is 3 months overdue as he is reworking large portions and sections so that it can do the things we originally asked of the program ;)

Formulate your approach then decide what can use pre-built packages and what needs to be hand coded.

"Dont program" can be as dangerous as "knee jerk" programming.

[JoeAltmaier]

Agreed. I tell my partner "We can write that easy!" and he always replies "We CAN do ANYTHING, Joe. What SHOULD we do?"