'Just' is quite rightly included amongst the C2 wiki list of Alarm Bell Phrases. It's a dangerous word that should be used as sparingly as possible. As a developer, it's a word you hear far too often: "this will just take a few days", "it's just a couple of web-pages", and of course the ultimate: "it should just work."
'Just' is a vague, almost condescending diminutive. Nine times out of ten, it means this:
I do not know, but it is in my interest to estimate optimistically.
Generally, you'll find that if you have a definite idea of the size of something, or the amount of effort required, the word 'just' quickly vanishes from your vocabulary. Not because the thing is necessarily large, but because even being certain that something is small removes the need to qualify its smallness: it becomes what it is, no more, no less, no 'just' required.
Jerry Weinberg calls them "lullaby words". Just read his article (you should, and very soon) :
http://www.cpuniverse.com/newsite/archives/2000/aug/bigpic.html
:-) Motivation by estimation smells like manipulation.
Similar thoughts here: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3593
But it JUST works
http://www.dotnet247.com/247reference/msgs/5/25230.aspx
:-)
I do docs, and am generally in agreement with the theme here. (Most recent example: we needed some HTML reference ... couldn't we "just cut and paste it from the Web?") But as a docs guy I also sometimes see the effect of ignoring a kind of "just works" issue. Imagine a dialog box that, dunno, opens a file or something. Much debate about how it should function, eventually a tableful of eyes looking down the table at me. "You'll need to have something in the docs about this." To which I think: No, I don't. Nobody should need to (and won't anyway) look up how to open a file/page/program/YourFeatureHere. It should ... just work. What do end users want? They want put the CD into the CD drive and ... it just works. How do people want their hardware to work? They plug it in and ... it just works. Etc. Not to suggest that this is easy, or that users can't be idiots, etc., etc. But it can be a clarifying, if frustrating, spec.
"Should just work" is an interesting exception.
"Should just work" means that we've been conditioned by decades of bad design to believe that a particular task is difficult, and are thus surprised beyond measure when it proves not to be.
"Should just work" is why I'm a rabid Macintosh convert. :)
JUST bloody get on with it!!
:-P