Software Truisms

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.
-- Einstein


André Bensoussan once explained to me the difference between a programmer and a designer:
"If you make a general statement, a programmer says, 'Yes, but...'
while a designer says, 'Yes, and...'"


No matter what the problem is, it is always a people problem.
-- Jerry Weinberg

Wexelblat's Scheduling Algorithm. With any project, choose two:
Good, Fast, Cheap


"There's no time to stop for gas, we're already late"
-- Karin Donker


Deming's 14 points:

Create constancy of purpose.
Adopt the new philosophy.
Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality.
Minimize total cost, not initial price of supplies.
Improve constantly the system of production and service.
Institute training on the job.
Institute leadership.
Drive out fear.
Break down barriers between departments.
Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and numerical targets.
Eliminate work standards (quotas) and management by objective.
Remove barriers that rob workers, engineers, and managers of their pride of workmanship.
Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
Put everyone in the company to work to accomplish the transformation.


We know about as much about software quality problems as they knew about the Black Plague in the 1600s. We've seen the victims' agonies and helped burn the corpses. We don't know what causes it; we don't really know if there is only one disease. We just suffer -- and keep pouring our sewage into our water supply.
-- Tom Van Vleck


When somebody begins a sentence with "It would be nice if..." the right thing to do is to wait politely for the speaker to finish. No project ever gets around to the it-would-be-nice features: or if they do, they regret it.

Wait for sentences that begin "We have to..." and pay close attention, and see if you agree.
-- Tom Van Vleck


The schedule doesn't have enough time for maintenance.
A lot of bugs get past the tests.
Most old code can't be maintained.


Anybody who knows about orbital mechanics knows in order to go faster, slow down.
-- Scott Cherf


Discipline is the best tool.
Design first, then code.
Don't patch bugs out, rewrite them out.
Don't test bugs out, design them out.


If you don't understand it, you can't program it.
If you didn't measure it, you didn't do it.

If something is worth doing once, it's worth building a tool to do it.

If you've found 3 bugs in a program, best estimate is that there are 3 more.
60% of product cost comes after initial shipment.


The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.
-- Albert Einstein


On the radio the other night, Jimmy Connors said the best advice he ever got was from Bobby Riggs:
do it
do it right
do it right now


A leader is best when people barely know that he exists.
Less good when they obey and acclaim him.
Worse when they fear and despise him.
Fail to honor people, and they fail to honor you.
But of a good leader, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
they will say, "We did this ourselves."
-- Lao-Tzu


You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
-- Gandhi


One test is worth a thousand opinions.

This saying is popular among scientists (doing experiments), but I believe it applies to software testing, particularly for real-time systems.
"If you didn't write it down, it didn't happen."
--Larry Zana


I am a design chauvinist. I believe that good design is magical and not to be lightly tinkered with. The difference between a great design and a lousy one is in the meshing of the thousand details that either fit or don't, and the spirit of the passionate intellect that has tied them together, or tried.

That's why programming---or buying software---on the basis of "lists of features" is a doomed and misguided effort. The features can be thrown together, as in a garbage can, or carefully laid together and interwoven in elegant unification, as in APL, or the Forth language, or the game of chess.
-- Ted Nelson


If you think good architecture is expensive, try bad architecture.
-- Brian Foote and Joseph Yoder


If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
-- Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Document everything and document consistently.
- Tim Wolf