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System debugging, like astronomy, has always been done chiefly at night.

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
Astronomy
System
Night
Done
Always
Like
Debugging
Chiefly

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Successful software always gets changed.
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The Waterfall Model is wrong and harmful we must outgrow it.
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Study after study shows that the very best designers produce structures that are faster, smaller, simpler, clearer, and produced with less effort. The differences between the great and the average approach an order of magnitude.
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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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More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined.
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...when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor.
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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
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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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A basic principle of data processing teaches the folly of trying to maintain independent files in synchonism.
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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 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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Even the best planning is not so omniscient as to get it right the first time.
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Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later
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Design work doesn't just satisfy requirements, it elicits them.
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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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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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The hardest part of the software task is arriving at a complete and consistent specification, and much of the essence of building a program is in fact the debugging of the specification.
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The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.
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Predictability and great design are not friends.
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I am more convinced than ever. Conceptual integrity is central to product quality.
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