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Pro tip when offering pro tips (stolen from Andrew Carnegie) begin by telling me why I should listen to your pro tip.

Pretend I’ve never hear of you and don’t know if you’ve ever accomplished anything meaningful. Assume that I’ll take one look, not recognize your name and go away unless you give me a reason to stay.



A lot of advice from successful people is tainted by survivorship bias. So the fact that the advice comes from a successful person isn’t sufficient to determine that it’s good advice.

Maybe we should demand that all advice undergo a large sample size double-blind study before it reaches our eyeballs. Only those pieces of advice with p values under 5% are fit for consumption.


Why should I listen to you?

Seriously, thank you for that feedback. While the current generation of developers has heard of my work, they don't necessarily associate it with me. Establishing credibility would amplify what I say.


Different strokes for different folks. Kent Beck is a very well-known programmer and likely needs no introduction. If he started every article on his personal blog regaling readers with his accomplishments, it might not be received as well as you suggest.


Plus he does do this eventually - shouting out JUnit and Extreme Programming. I didn’t know who he was, tbf




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