Another essential personality factor in programming is at least a small dose of humility. Without humility, a programmer is foredoomed to the classic… - Gerald M. Weinberg

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Another essential personality factor in programming is at least a small dose of humility. Without humility, a programmer is foredoomed to the classic pattern of Greek drama: success leading to overconfidence (hubris) leading to blind self-destruction. Sophocles himself could not frame a better plot (to reveal the inadequacy of our powers) than that of the programmer learning a few simple techniques, feeling that he is an expert, and then being crushed by the irresistible power of the computer (the Deus ex Machina).

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About Gerald M. Weinberg

Gerald M. Weinberg (October 27, 1933 – August 7, 2018) was an American computer scientist, author and teacher of the psychology and anthropology of computer software development.

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Additional quotes by Gerald M. Weinberg

Why is it that we reward programmers who work all night to remove the errors they put into their programs, or managers who make drastic organizational changes to resolve the crises their poor management has created? Why not reward the programmers who design so well that they don’t have dramatic errors, and managers whose organizations stay out of crisis mode? Organizing

"Testing may convincingly demonstrate the presence of bugs, but can never demonstrate their absence."- Edsger W. Dijkstra, Computing Pioneer (1930–2002), "Programming as a discipline of mathematical nature," Am. Math. Monthly, 81 (1974), No. 6, pp. 608–12.

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Much of the ability to help other people arises from personal power, but it would be naive to assert that nothing else is required. In large organizations, there are many resources available to a leader — money to pay for training, support staff, office space, tools to make work more efficient, access to helpful people. Such resources are not evenly distributed, and one of the requirements for becoming a problem-solving leader is to acquire organizational power so as to obtain resources for other innovators.

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