The single most important lesson I learned in any of my software engineering courses was to listen first, build later. And keep asking questions until you under

The single most important lesson I learned in any of my software engineering courses was to listen first, build later. And keep asking questions until you understand the full requirements of the project! So much time and effort is wasted when programmers build first and ask questions later, and the whole process is needlessly frustrating for everyone involved. You're spot on re: humility and empathy. I see so much hubris in programmers/computer people thinking they/we can fully understand the world's problems, much less solve them.