MIT approach to design and implementation

Always keep these in mind when developing software.

• Simplicity: the design must be simple, both in implementation and interface. It is more important for the interface to be simple than that the implementation be simple.
• Correctness: the design must be correct in all observable aspects. Incorrectness is simply not allowed.
• Consistency: the design must not be inconsistent. A design is allowed to be slightly less simple and less complete to avoid inconsistency. Consistency is as important as correctness.
• Completeness: the design must cover as many important situations as is practical. All reasonably expected cases must be covered. Simplicity is not allowed to overly reduce completeness.

(extracted from the UNIX-HATERS Handbook)

See also

• Xiph's Coding Guidelines
• How to do a release