Gerald M. Weinberg Quotes

In the popular image, a problem-solving leader is a solitary genius, but the true leader prefers to produce a success.

When is the 'look out the windshield phase' of driving? Pretty much all driving is looking out the windshield! It's not a phase. Saying 'testing takes too long' is a bit like saying 'safe driving takes too long.

By making the time tradeoff explicit and by indicating a willingness to contribute time now, I make it clear that it is a problem of limited time, not a problem of limited respect for the other person.

Or, suppose you want to motivate your managers to ship products on time, so you conspicuously promote each manager whose product goes out the door on schedule. All goes as planned until the situation arises in which one of your managers has a project where the testers are reporting numerous problems. Because managers who have shipped products on time have been promoted, this manager thinks, I want that promotion so I need to ship this on time, but those bug reports are getting in the way. I know what I'll do! I'll put the testers on another project until the developers have a chance to catch up.

"There's never an easy answer to the question "Should we do more testing?" because information can guide risk reduction, but doesn't necessarily do so."

Influence or affluence; take your choice.

"Denise: "So your present project is ready to pass to the testing people?" Ralph: "Absolutely." Denise: "Okay, since you're so sure it's adequately tested, I'm going to make you the following generous offer: If fewer than three bugs turn up in your component during testing, I will give you a raise. But if three or more bugs turn up during testing, you won't earn a raise this year." Ralph: "Um . . ." Denise: "Um what?" "Could I just have the component back for a few little tests I want to do?

Programming is generally a manual operation — we laugh when someone asks us to “say something in FORTRAN.” It is a written language, and in spite of its resemblance to other written languages, it differs from them in not having a speech system behind it. Not that written languages are simple transcriptions of speech, not at all; but a written language such as English is strongly influenced by its relationship to a spoken language. This influence is not so strong in other written languages, such as those using the Chinese writing system, but the influence — the mutual influence — always exists.

Rather than fight change, a more sensible approach is to learn to live with it. Or to make a living from it.

The value of documentation is only to be realized if the documentation is well done. If it is poorly done, it will be worse than no documentation at all.

Programs, like any other human-made objects, are designed — or should be designed — with a definite lifespan and scope of application in mind. Like the “Deacon’s Masterpiece,” which was “built in such a logical way it ran a hundred years to the day,” a program should have neither over-designed or under-designed parts. Yet it is an occupational disease of programmers to spend more time on those program parts that present, for some reason, the most intellectual challenge rather than on those that require the most work.

… intelligence has less to do with the matter than personality, work habits, and training. These things, unlike intelligence, can be changed by experience later in life, which turns the problem from one of selecting programmers to creating them.

Survival requires that we learn to laugh things off and start over

One typical computing example of social fixation is the adoption of one programming language by an installation. Once the language has been adopted, a new language has more difficulty making an entry, because with most of the people using the old language, advantages accrue to following the beaten path.

why is it so hard for developers to submit their work for review by others or to try to improve their own skills by reviewing the work of others? Curiously, superior developers tend to find value with walkthrough and inspection processes while the merely clever do not. So, as always, the good get better and the bad get worse.