YAGNI is a slogan of the Extreme and/or Agile programming community. Stands for You Aren't Going to Need It. The idea is, if you are thinking of doing something other than (another slogan) `the simplest thing that could possibly work' -- don't. The rational for complicating things only when an actual need arises to justify the complexity is that unnecessary complexity adds maintenance issues evey bit as much as needed complexity, but without the payoff of additional functionality. Or, so it seems to a non-XP'er.
There's a little more to it than that. Adding something because you think you are going to need it in the future is a guess that you can predict the future. Often you will guess wrong because requirements will change for many reasons. Plus, time spent developing tomorrow's features is taken away from developing today's features. XP says, do today only what you need to meet today's requirements; tomorrow is soon enough to work on tomorrow's requirements.
For more info see the c2 wiki (which is a great resource for good programming practice and Extreme Programming): http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?YouArentGonnaNeedIt
Kent
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