Fred Brooks Quotes - Page 3

A design style is defined by a set of microdecisions. A clear style reflects a consistent set. A clear style may not be a good style; a muddled one never is.

Process improvement is most valuable in raising the floor of a community's practice.

Einstein repeatedly argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.

A basic principle of data processing teaches the folly of trying to maintain independent files in synchonism.

Product procedure...must securely protect the crown jewels, but, equally important, it must eschew building high fences around the garbage cans.

The brain alone is intricate beyond mapping, powerful beyond imitation, rich in diversity, self-protecting, and self-renewing. The secret is that it is grown, not built.

The boss must first distinguish between action information and status information. He must discipline himself not to act on problems his managers can solve, and never to act on problems when he is explicitly reviewing status.

Plan to throw one (implementation) away; you will, anyhow.

The Waterfall Model is wrong and harmful; we must outgrow it.

But I will argue that knowing complete product requirements up front is a quite rare exception, not the norm.

Scientists build to learn; Engineers learn to build.

To only a fraction of the human race does God give the privilege of earning one's bread doing what one would have gladly pursued free, for passion.

The term architecture is used here to describe the attributes of a system as seen by the programmer, i.e., the conceptual structure and functional behavior, as distinct from the organization of the data flow and controls, the logical design, and the physical implementation. i. Additional details concerning the architecture

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

Job Control Language is the worst programming language ever designed anywhere by anybody for any purpose.

One can expect the human race to continue attempting systems just within or just beyond our reach; and software systems are perhaps the most intricate and complex of man's handiworks. The management of this complex craft will demand our best use of new languages and systems, our best adaptation of proven engineering management methods, liberal doses of common sense, and a God-given humility to recognize our fallibility and limitations.

A computer program is a message from a man to a machine. The rigidly marshaled syntax and the scrupulous definitions all exist to make intention clear to the dumb engine.

...when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor.