

If a programmer is found to be indispensable, the best thing to
do is to get rid of him as quickly as possible.
                   -The Psychology of Computer Programming, 
                    Gerald M. Weinberg,  
                    (Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1971)  


Some  years  ago,  when  COBOL  was the great white programming
hope, one heard much talk  of  the  possibility  of  executives
being  able  to  read  programs  ...  nobody can seriously have
believed [this] ...  even programmers do not read programs.
                   -Weinberg, p.5  


There are ...  programs that should be thrown away before  ever
being used.
                   -Weinberg, p.20  


Asking  for  efficiency and adaptibility in the same program is
like asking for a beautiful and modest wife ...  we'll probably
have to settle for one or the other.
                   -Weinberg, p.22  


If the programmer is working in a  language  that  allows  only
three dimensions, we are not likely to observe more than three.
                   -Weinberg, p.31  


Putting  a  bunch of people to work on the same problem doesn't
make them a team.
                   -Weinberg, p.35  


The systems designer suffer[s] because the  better  his  system
does its job, the less its users know of its existence.
                   -Weinberg, p.124  


...   each  program  has  an  appropriate  level  of  care  and
sophistication dependent on the uses to which it will  be  put.
                   -Weinberg, p.127  


To  detect  errors,  the programmer must have a conniving mind,
one  that  delights  in  uncovering  flaws  where  beauty   and
perfection were once thought to lie.
                   -Weinberg, p.136  


For  locating  errors,  however,  we  want a person who has the
persistence of a mother-in-law and the collecting instincts  of
a pack rat.
                   -Weinberg, p.136  






                               -1-








If  the  poor  workman  hates his tools, the good workman hates
poor tools.  The work of the workingman is, in a sense, defined
by his tools.
                   -Weinberg, p.203  


No craftsman,  if  he  aspires  to  the  highest  work  in  his
profession,  will  accept [inferior] tools; and no employer, if
he appreciates the quality of work, will  ask  a  craftsman  to
accept them.
                   -Weinberg, p.204  


Another  effect [of not having a spoken form] is the difficulty
with which we can talk about a programming language  without  a
blackboard  or  pencil  and  paper.   Every  programming office
should have a blackboard, chalk, and many erasers.
                   -Weinberg, p.207  


'Programming'  -  like  'loving'  -  is  a  single  word   that
encompasses an infinitude of activities.
                   -Weinberg, p.121  


The  important thing is not to stop questioning.  Curiosity has
its own reason for existing.
                   -Albert Einstein  


Programming shares  with  prayer  the  feature  of  directional
transmission and broadcast reception.
                   -Weinberg, p.207  


...   in  some  terminal  systems  ...   the  user can keep his
program from  being  pushed  down  in  the  priority  stack  by
fiddling with the shift key while he is thinking.
                   -Weinberg, p.209  


The expert is a person who avoids the small errors as he sweeps
on to the grand fallacy.
                   -Anonymous  


The  nature  of  programming  being  what  it  is,  there is no
relationship between the 'size' of the error and  the  problems
it causes.
                   -Weinberg, p.247  


When  a  programmer  has  a difficult time finding a bug, it is
because he is looking in the wrong place.
                   -Weinberg, p.251  


                               -2-








Documentation  is  the  castor  oil  of  programming  ...   the
managers  know  it  must be good because programmers hate it so
much.
                   -Weinberg, p.262  


The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten per cent of  its
capacity - the rest is overhead for the operating system.
                   -Anonymous  


We stand at the brink of a new age, an age made possible by the
revolution  that  is embodied in the computer.  Standing on the
brink, we could totter either way - to a golden age of  liberty
or  a  dark  age  of  tyranny,  either  of  which would surpass
anything the world has ever  known.   Perhaps  no  individual's
efforts  will  make  any  difference in the result, but we must
never cease trying, for then the result is sure to be  tyranny.
                   -Weinberg, p.279  


...   [OS/360]  was late, it took more memory than planned, the
costs were several times the estimate, and it did  not  perform
very well until several releases after the first.
                   -The Mythical Man-Month,  
                   Frederick Brooks, p. viii  


A ship on the beach is a lighthouse to the sea.
                   -Dutch proverb  


Everyone  seems to have been surprised by the stickiness of the
problem, and it is hard to discern the nature of it.
                   -Brooks, p.4  


The programmed computer has all the fascination of the  pinball
machine or the jukebox mechanism, carried to the ultimate.
                   -Brooks, p.7  


The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from
pure thought-stuff.
                   -Brooks, p.7  


One  types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display
screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor  could
be   ...   [however]  if  one  character,  one  pause,  of  the
incantation is not strictly in proper form, the  magic  doesn't
work.
                   -Brooks, p.8  




                               -3-








...   one's authority is not sufficient for his responsibility.
                   -Brooks, p.8  


...  designing grand concepts is fun; finding nitty little bugs
is just work.
                   -Brooks, p.8  


As soon as one freezes a design, it becomes obsolete  in  terms
of its concepts.
                   -Brooks, p.9  


Good  cooking  takes  time.   If you are made to wait, it is to
serve you better, and to please you.
                   -Menu of Restaurant Antoine, New Orleans 


All programmers are optimists.
                   -Brooks, p.14  


This time it will surely run.
                   -Anonymous  


I just found the last bug.
                   -Unanimous  


A large programming effort ...  consists of  many  tasks,  some
chained  end-to-end.   The  probability  that each will go well
becomes vanishingly small.
                   -Brooks, p.16  


Cost does indeed vary as the product of the number of  men  and
the  number of months.  Progress does not.  Hence the man-month
as a unit for measuring the size of a job is  a  dangerous  and
deceptive myth.
                   -Brooks, p.16  


The  bearing  of  a child takes nine months, no matter how many
women are assigned.
                   -Brooks, p.17  


When everything has been seen to work, all integrated, you have
four more months work to do.
                   -Charles Portman  
                   International Computers Limited  




                               -4-








Observe that for the programmer, as for the chef,  the  urgency
of  the patron may govern the scheduled completion of the task,
but it cannot govern the actual completion.
                   -Brooks, p.21  


...  when [the omelette]  has  not  set  in  two  minutes,  the
customer has two choices - wait or eat it raw.
                   -Brooks, p.21  


Brooks Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it
later.
                   -Brooks, p.25  


...   the  sheer  number of minds to be coordinated affects the
cost of the effort.
                   -Brooks, p.30  


...  conceptual integrity is the most  important  consideration
in system design.
                   -Brooks, p.42  


The  purpose of a programming system is to make a computer easy
to use.
                   -Brooks, p.43  


Neither function alone nor  simplicity  alone  defines  a  good
design.
                   -Brooks, p.43  


Add little to little and there will be a big pile.
                   -Ovid  


He'll  sit here and he'll say, 'Do this!  Do that!' And nothing
will happen.
                   -Harry S. Truman  


Never go to sea with two chronometers; take one or three.
                   -Anonymous  


I know it.  I know what needs to be done - but every time I try
to tackle a technical problem some bloody fool wants me to make
a decision about trucks - or telephones - or some  damn  thing.
                   -Robert Heinlein  
                   The Man Who Sold the Moon  



                               -5-








The problem was that everybody who was working there, including
myself,  wanted  to  do  really neat stuff but they didn't want
neat stuff, they just wanted a lot of stuff fast.
                   -Rick Baker, make-up artist for King 
                   Kong, Star Wars, et. al.  


The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to
chance.
                   -Robert R. Coveyou  
                   Oak Ridge National Laboratory  


It's redundant!  It's redundant!
                   -R. E. Dundant  


I don't know any reason why we couldn't do it, but maybe we can
think of one.
                   -Mark C. Davison  


Bug?  That's not a bug, that's a feature.
                   -T. John Wendel  


The computer 'Doth make fools of us all'.
                   -Weinberg, p.152  


Any fool without the ability to share a laugh on  himself  will
be unable to tolerate programming for long.
                   -Weinberg, p.152  


The programmer's national anthem is 'AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH'.
                   -Weinberg, p.152  


When  we  finally  see the light, we see how once again we have
fallen into some foolish assumption, some oafish  practice,  or
some witless blunder.
                   -Weinberg, p.152  


The  computer  always has an excuse: the programmer never does.
                   -Mark C. Davison  


The user does not know what he wants  until  he  sees  what  he
gets.
                   -Ed Yourdon  





                               -6-








We   tend   to  blame  the  physical  media  for  most  of  our
implementation difficulties; for the media are  not  'ours'  in
the way ideas are, and our pride colors our judgement.
                   -Anonymous  


Completely  compatible  -  things  that work together with less
than $1000  of  interfaces  and  less  than  100  man-hours  of
software patches.
                   -Datamazing, 4/1/78  


Stack manipulation - the use of inflatable falsies.
                   -Datamazing, 4/1/78  


Design  of  both  hardware and software must be considered when
doing the system design.
                   -Proceedings of the IEEE, 2/78, p.167  


The job cannot be done right unless  the  necessary  tools  are
available.
                   -Proceedings of the IEEE, 2/78, p.174  


        I hear and I forget. 
        I see and I remember. 
        I do and I understand. 

                   -Confucius 


On a clear disk you can seek forever.
                   -Computerworld button  


I  write  all  my critical routines in assembler, and my comedy
routines in FORTRAN.
                   -Anonymous  


It is impossible to make anything foolproof because  fools  are
so ingenious.
                   -Edsel Murphy, dec.  


It  seems intuitively clear that the existence of an error in a
program will not be reflected in the  test  result  unless  the
program component in error is executed during the test.
                   -J.C. Huang, 'Program Instrumentation 
                   and Software Testing', Computer, Volume 
                   II Number 4  




                               -7-








If  debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming
must be the process of putting them in.
                   -Dykstra  


Are you at the point where you don't  have  the  time  to  find
solutions  to  the problems that are taking up all your time???
                   -Mark C. Davison 

















































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