Opinions Are Loud. Data Is Louder

I recently watched an interview with José Valim (creator of Elixir) and something he said caught my attention: "When we're discussing technical things, it's very easy to fall back on opinions — and I like to say: if all we have are opinions, I prefer mine". He then adds: "When I'm making decisions about the project, about the language, I am making technical decisions where I can pinpoint the trade-offs.".

This sounds obvious, but there's real wisdom here. As engineers, we pride ourselves on problem-solving, yet in practice, many debates revolve around personal conviction rather than concrete evidence. To me, the biggest take away from this is that evidence gives structure to disagreement, not that we should suppress valuable opinions... Another thing to keep in mind is that good ideas supported by clear evidence are less likely to be buried by inertia, and it flattens hierarchy in the best possible way.