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It is very difficult to make a vigorous, plausible, and job-risking defense of an estimate that is derived by no quantitative method, supported by little data, and certified chiefly by the hunches of the managers

Fred Brooks

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Fred Brooks
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: April 19
Computer Scientist
Engineer
Mathematician
Software Engineer
University Teacher
Durham
North Carolina
Frederick Phillips Brooks
Jr.
Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
Frederick Phillips Fred Brooks
Jr
Frederick P. Brooks
Frederick Phillips
Defense
Estimate
Method
Chiefly
Difficult
Plausible
Jobs
Derived
Littles
Vigorous
Certified
Little
Supported
Quantitative
Make
Managers
Hunches
Data
Risking

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Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later
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Adjusting to the requirement for perfection is, I think, the most difficult part of learning to program.
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The Waterfall Model is wrong and harmful we must outgrow it.
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There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity.
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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
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System debugging, like astronomy, has always been done chiefly at night.
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Predictability and great design are not friends.
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Show me your flowcharts and conceal your tables, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your flowcharts they'll be obvious.
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Successful software always gets changed.
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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.
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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.
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Originality is no excuse for ignorance.
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Systematically identity top designers as early as possible. The best are often not the most experienced.
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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.
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Plan to throw one (implementation) away you will, anyhow.
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A basic principle of data processing teaches the folly of trying to maintain independent files in synchonism.
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Even the best planning is not so omniscient as to get it right the first time.
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The programmer's primary weapon in the never-ending battle against slow system is to change the intramodular structure. Our first response should be to reorganize the modules' data structures.
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I am more convinced than ever. Conceptual integrity is central to product quality.
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Product procedure...must securely protect the crown jewels, but, equally important, it must eschew building high fences around the garbage cans.
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