Murphy's Law

The remaining work to finish in order to reach your goal increases as the deadline approaches.

A program generator creates programs that are more "buggy" than the program generator.

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.

When all else fails, read the instructions.

Things get worse under pressure.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

The first 90 percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last 10 percent takes the other 90 percent.

The higher the "higher-ups" are who've come to see your demo, the lower your chances are of giving a successful one

The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on.

Every task takes twice as long as you think it will take. If you double the time you think it will take, it will actually takes four times as long.

An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.

There is always one item on the screen menu that is mislabeled and should read "ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE".

Variables won't, constants aren't.

A bad sector disk error only occurs after you've done several hours of work without performing a backup.

Murphy was an optimist.

No matter how large and standardized the marketplace is, IBM can redefine it.

The solution to a problem changes the problem.

1) To study an application best, understand it thoroughly before you start.

2) Always keep a record of data. It indicates you've been working.

3) Always draw your curves, then plot the reading.

4) In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.

5) Program results should always be reproducible. They should all fail in the same way.

6) Do not believe in miracles. Rely on them.

Inside every complex and unworkable program is a useful routine struggling to be free.

Blessed is the end user who expects nothing, for he/she will not be disappointed.

Judgement comes from experience; Experience comes from poor judgement.

1) At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer.

2) Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.

3) Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.

4) Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some work done.

It works better if you plug it in.

The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the general public.

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

Your "IBM PC-compatible" computer grows more incompatible with every passing moment.

1) Given any problem containing N equations, there will be N + 1 unknowns.

2) An object or bit of information most needed will be least available.

3) Any device requiring service or adjustment will be least accessible.

4) Interchangeable devices won't.

5) In any human endeavor, once you have exhausted all possibilities and fail, there will be one solution, simple and obvious, highly visible to everyone else.

6) Badness comes in waves.

The first myth of management is that it exists.

1) After months of training and you finally understand all of a program's commands, a revised version of the program arrives with an all-new command structure.

2) After designing a useful routine that gets around a familiar "bug" in the system, the system is revised, the "bug" is taken away, and you're left with a useless routine.

3) Efforts in improving a program's "user-friendliness" invariably lead to work in improving user's "compuetr literacy".

4) That's not a "bug", that's a "feature"!

1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete.

2) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.

3) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.

4) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory.

5) The value of a program is proportional to the wieght of its output.

6) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it.

7) Make it possible for programmers to write programs in Engllish, and you will find that programmers cannot write in English.

An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.

Inside every program is a small program struggling to get out.

If builders built building the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.

Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.

As soon as a still-to-be-finished computer task becomes a life-or-death situation, the power fails.