I still remember an EE lab professor saying one day "get in the habit of using red wires for Power and black for Ground. That way, when you have your first accident, maybe it won't be too bad."

Or a technician I used to work with who would quote his tech school instructor daily, "NO, no loose conductors on the test bench."

All the nail heads on my work bench are covered with electrical tape. I try to use red wires for + and black or green for - whenever possible. I learned to think about what could happen before I flip the power switch (first power up use the lab supply with current limited to the absolute minimum the circuit needs), or when I hit F5 in the debugger (does anyone have their hands in the machine?).

I've still set things on fire, still broken expensive pieces of equipment because I had the wrong sign on a variable, still made loud banging steel-on-steel noises because I didn't calculate an offset correctly etc.,

At the end of the day, if everyone goes home with all body parts intact, we'll call it good.