Quotes Every Software Engineer Should Know

There are 10 people in the world, those who can read BINARY and those who cannot.

- Anonymous

 A clever person solves a problem.

A wise person AVOIDS it.

 - Albert Einstein

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

 - Rich Cook

Before software can be reusable it first has to be usable.

- Ralph Johnson

There’s no time to stop for gas, we’re already late

- Karin Donker

To go faster, slow down. Everybody who knows about orbital mechanics understands that.

- Scott Cherf

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

It is not enough to do your best: you must KNOW what to do, and THEN do your best.

- W.Edwards Deming

Abraham Lincoln reportedly said that, given eight hours to chop down a tree, he’d spend six sharpenning his axe.

 - TidBITS 654, quoted by Derek K. Miller, via Art Evans

Everybody Knows:

* 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.

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

- Albert Einstein

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

Why do we never have time to do it right, but always have time to DO IT OVER?

 - Anonymous

 It’s hard enough to find an error in your code when you’re looking for it; its even harder when you’ve ASSUMED your code is ERROR-FREE.

- Steve McConnell

Simple things should be simple, complex things should be POSSIBLE.

The perfect project plan is POSSIBLE if one first documents a list of ALL the UNKNOWNS.

- Bill Langley

Software and cathedrals are much the same – first we build them, then we pray.

 FAST. GOOD. CHEAP. Choose any two.

 - Common Project Scheduling Mantra

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

- Fred Brooks

9 women CANNOT make a baby in ONE MONTH.

- Fred Brooks