Software Related Sayings

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

-- TidBITS 654, quoted by Derek K. Miller, via Art Evans
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Software is Too Important to be Left to Programmers, by Meilir Page-Jones.
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Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Just one. But the house falls down.

Andrew Siwko
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Q: How many QA testers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: QA testers don't change anything. They just report that it's dark.

Kerry Zallar
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when the cart stops
do you whip the cart
or whip the ox?
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You must be the change
You wish to see in the world

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

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

-- Albert Einstein
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Everybody Knows:

* 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.
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Your problem is another's solution;
Your solution will be his problem.
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Everybody Knows:

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

* If you don't understand it, you can't program it.
* If you didn't measure it, you didn't do it.
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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.
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The Troops Know

* The schedule doesn't have enough time for maintenance in it.
* A lot of bugs get past the tests.
* Most old code can't be maintained.
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Wexelblat's Scheduling Algorithm:

Choose two:

* Good
* Fast
* Cheap
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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...'"
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A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it.

-- Einstein
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