I try to understand whether the word "avoid" is strong enough to mean "never".

> 
> Listen my advice: avoid joking about Joe.
> 
> 
> 

> 
> Listen my advice: never joke about Joe.
> 
> 
> 

It is assumed that Joe is a complete psychopath, but we don't state it explicitly. Is our advice "safe" enough to prevent someone to be killed?

I ask it because I often see sentences starting with "Avoid..." in technical documentation. It always makes me scratch my head and ask myself whether it is permitted to break the described rule when I really want to do so. The sentences like this one:

> 
> Avoid calling a function before its declaration.
> 
> 
>