- Build modular programs
- Write readable programs
- Use composition
- Separate mechanisms from policy
- Write simple programs
- Write small programs
- Write transparent programs
- Write robust programs
- Make data complicated when required, not the program
- Build on potential users’ expected knowledge
- Avoid unnecessary output
- Write programs which fail in a way that is easy to diagnose
- Value developer time over machine time
- Write abstract programs that generate code instead of writing code by hand
- Prototype software before polishing it
- Write flexible and open programs
- Make the program and protocols extensible.
From The Art of Unix Programming by Eric S. Raymond