Bonus notes
As the flowchart shows, learning from our mistakes is a lifelong process that starts at birth and doesn't end until death.
While it is true that mistakes are inevitable, they are often avoidable - even when taking risks. Education and experience teach us how to avoid mistakes and minimize the number and severity of our mistakes.
If you are learning a new programming language you will make one mistake after another. If you are not fully knowledgeable of the task at hand or the failed system you have been asked to fix you will likely make errors. The complexity of IT means that we learn each and every day - often from the mistakes we make.
Why do we repeat our mistakes? We can recognize the situation when a mistake occurred in the past and remember the mistake but unless we change our previous behavior the mistake will happen again. There are a number of reasons that some might call character flaws for not changing our behavior - ego, pride, hubris, self pity, low self esteem or sheer mule-like behavior. And that may be most often where opportunities to avoid mistakes are lost.
Law #2. Not all mistakes are bad mistakes - "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein Coca Cola and the ubiquitous yellow 3M Post-it Notes were also discovered by mistake. The person who corrects his mistakes and learns from them is even wiser. You must often push the limits and take risks to get anything more than the simplest of tasks accomplished. Life is full of risks.
Law #5. Mistakes occur at the very worst time. "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." - Murphy's Law
Law #8. Mistakes of inaction are mistakes nonetheless - IT is fraught with errors of inaction as well:
Failure to test backups
Failure to thoroughly test software and systems before release
Failure to market test new software
Failure to coordinate and communicate changes
Perhaps the most frustrating example is the manager whose inaction leads to bandage solutions to serious problems. Before long, the staff is spending most of their time in fire-fighting mode.
Law #10. Failing to learn from your mistakes is a mistake. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana This famous adage has many variants including "Those who fail to learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them."
As always, I will be popping in occasionally to answer any questions and add to the discussion when I have something intelligent to say.
Edit: Formatting
