Extra features were once considered desirable. We now recognize that 'free' features are rarely free. Any increase in generality that does not contri….

Second law: The complexity barrier. Software complexity (and therefore that of bugs) grows to the limits of our ability to manage that complexity..

Testing proves a programmer’s failure. Debugging is the programmer’s vindication..

Software never was perfect and won't get perfect. But is that a license to create garbage? The missing ingredient is our reluctance to quantify quali….

One of the saddest sights to me has always been a human at a keyboard doing something by hand that could be automated. It's sad but hilarious..

First law: The pesticide paradox. Every method you use to prevent or find bugs leaves a residue of subtler bugs against which those methods are ineff….

In programming, it’s often the buts in the specification that kill you..

If you can't test it, don't build it. If you don't test it, rip it out..

If the objective of testing were to prove that a program is free of bugs, then not only would testing be practically impossible, but it would also be….

A design remedy that prevents bugs is always preferable to a test method that discovers them..

A test that reveals a bug has succeeded, not failed..

Bugs lurk in corners and congregate at boundaries..

A good threat is worth a thousand tests..

More than the act of testing, the act of designing tests is one of the best bug preventers known..