My Toolkit

Creating software is a difficult task prone to many mistakes. To help navigate this complicated endeavor, over the past years I have collected a broad range of mental models, laws, heuristics, fallacies, biases, principles and thought experiments that I found helpful. Enjoy reading 🙂

Gambler's Fallacy

Gambler's Fallacy

Alternative Paths Fallacy

Alternative Paths Fallacy

Goodhart’s law

Goodhart’s law

Anchor Effect

Anchor Effect

Fitt’s Law

Fitt’s Law

The Interface Segregation Principle

The Interface Segregation Principle

Outcome Bias

Outcome Bias

Dunbar’s Number

Dunbar’s Number

Base-Rate Neglect

Base-Rate Neglect

Law of Similarity

Law of Similarity

The Scout Rule

The Scout Rule

Loss aversion

Loss aversion

Hyperbolic Discounting

Hyperbolic Discounting

Brewer’s Theorem

Brewer’s Theorem

The Law of Conservation of Complexity (Tesler’s Law)

The Law of Conservation of Complexity (Tesler’s Law)

YAGNI

YAGNI

Metcalfe’s Law

Metcalfe’s Law

The Dead Sea Effect

The Dead Sea Effect

The Single Responsibility Principle

The Single Responsibility Principle

Exponential Growth

Exponential Growth

Murphy’s Law - Sod’s Law

Murphy’s Law - Sod’s Law

Sunk Cost Fallacy

Sunk Cost Fallacy

Association Bias

Association Bias

Amdahl’s Law

Amdahl’s Law

Swimmer’s Body Illusion

Swimmer’s Body Illusion

Linus’s Law

Linus’s Law

Hindsight Bias

Hindsight Bias

Doherty Threshold

Doherty Threshold

Groupthink

Groupthink

The Dilbert Principle

The Dilbert Principle

The Law of Triviality

The Law of Triviality

The Unix Philosophy

The Unix Philosophy

The Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)

The Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)

The Robustness Principle (Postel’s Law)

The Robustness Principle (Postel’s Law)

Reed’s Law

Reed’s Law

Regression to the mean

Regression to the mean

Goal-Gradient Effect

Goal-Gradient Effect

Putt’s Law

Putt’s Law

George Box’s Law

George Box’s Law

Illusion of Control

Illusion of Control

Law of proximity

Law of proximity

Law of Prägnanz

Law of Prägnanz

Self-Serving Bias

Self-Serving Bias

90-9-1 Principle

90-9-1 Principle

Conjunction Fallacy

Conjunction Fallacy

Social Proof Bias

Social Proof Bias

The Hype Cycle & Amaras’s Law

The Hype Cycle & Amaras’s Law

Hanlon’s Razor

Hanlon’s Razor

Liking Bias

Liking Bias

Cunningham’s Law

Cunningham’s Law

Selection Bias

Selection Bias

Induktion

Induktion

The Broken Windows Theory

The Broken Windows Theory

Wheaton’s Law

Wheaton’s Law

The Law of the Instrument

The Law of the Instrument

The Law of Leaky Abstractions

The Law of Leaky Abstractions

The Fallacies of Distributed Computing

The Fallacies of Distributed Computing

Self-Selection Bias

Self-Selection Bias

The two Pizza Rule

The two Pizza Rule

Kernighan’s Law

Kernighan’s Law

Hedonic Treadmill

Hedonic Treadmill

Zeigarnik Effect

Zeigarnik Effect

Action Bias

Action Bias

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation Bias

Von Restorff Effect

Von Restorff Effect

Aesthetic usability Effect

Aesthetic usability Effect

Overconfidence Effect

Overconfidence Effect

Hick’s Law (Hick-Hyman Law)

Hick’s Law (Hick-Hyman Law)

Serial Position Effect

Serial Position Effect

The KISS Principle

The KISS Principle

Conway’s Law

Conway’s Law

Hofstadter’s Law

Hofstadter’s Law

Law of Uniform Connectedness

Law of Uniform Connectedness

Incentive-Superresponse-Tendency

Incentive-Superresponse-Tendency

False Causality

False Causality

The DRY Principle

The DRY Principle

The Shirky Principle

The Shirky Principle

Authority Bias

Authority Bias

non-Resulting

non-Resulting

Object Oriented Programming

Object Oriented Programming

The Law of Demeter

The Law of Demeter

CAP Theorem

CAP Theorem

Hyrum’s Law (The Law of Implicit Interfaces)

Hyrum’s Law (The Law of Implicit Interfaces)

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

Survivorship Bias

Survivorship Bias

Peak-End-Rule

Peak-End-Rule

Paradox of Choice

Paradox of Choice

Neglect of probability

Neglect of probability

The Open/Closed Principle

The Open/Closed Principle

Framing

Framing

Social Loafing

Social Loafing

The Liskov Substitution Principle

The Liskov Substitution Principle

Reciprocity

Reciprocity

Chesterton’s Fence

Chesterton’s Fence

Gall’s Law

Gall’s Law

Hutber’s Law

Hutber’s Law

Halo Effect

Halo Effect

The Dependency Inversion Principle

The Dependency Inversion Principle

Omission Bias

Omission Bias

Law of common region

Law of common region

Wadler’s Law

Wadler’s Law

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance

Availability Bias

Availability Bias

Miller’s Law

Miller’s Law

Premature Optimization Effect

Premature Optimization Effect

Parkinson’s Law

Parkinson’s Law

Occam’s Razor

Occam’s Razor

The Peter Principle

The Peter Principle

Jakob’s Law

Jakob’s Law

Moore’s Law

Moore’s Law

Brooks’ Law

Brooks’ Law