For some reason this really reminded me of the "The Unwritten Laws of Engineering" posted a couple days ago. If you're interested see there:

HN POST -- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2512740

Part 1: http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/October/Unwritten_L...

Part 2: http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/November/Unwritten_...

Part 3: http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/December/Unwritten_...