Fred Brooks

“The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.”

“Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers think it is good for programmers and programmers hate it!”

“Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.”

“The hardest part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build.”

“Show me your flowchart and conceal your tables, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your flowchart; it'll be obvious.”

“An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint.”

“How does a project get to be a year late? One day at a time.”

“Plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow.”

“Conceptual integrity is the most important consideration in system design.”

“The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.”

“The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff.”

“The complexity of a software system is an essential property, not an accidental one.”

“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.”

“The purpose of a programming system is to make a computer easy to use.”

“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.”