I wouldn’t dare defile Douglas Adam’s memory by not mentioning that you should keep a towel with you at all times, but my second contender is a surprisingly short three-parter:
- never lie.
- never tell the whole truth.
- never pass up a chance to use a real bathroom.
Funny enough, these have analogs in programming!
The Boyscouts rule! Clean up bad code if you can!
Sometimes you gotta write janky code to meet a deadline. That is not a personal failure. And give folks a break who do it too.