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

The hardest single part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build the most important function that software builders do for t….

All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the h….

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 fac….

Well over half of the time you spend working on a project (on the order of 70 percent) is spent thinking, and no tool, no matter how advanced, can th….

The fundamental problem with program maintenance is that fixing a defect has a substantial (20-50 percent) chance of introducing another. So the whol….

Successful software always gets changed..

Present to inform, not to impress. If you inform, you will impress..

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

You can learn more from failure than success. In failure you're forced to find out what part did not work. But in success you can believe everything ….

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

A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build..

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time..

An ancient adage warns, "Never go to sea with two chronometers; take one or three.".

Nine people can't make a baby in a month..

Software work is the most complex that humanity has ever undertaken..

The critical thing about the design process is to identify your scarcest resource. Despite what you may think, that very often is not money. For exam….

Even the best planning is not so omniscient as to get it right the first time..

Observe that for the programmer, as for the chef, the urgency of the patron may govern the scheduled completion of the task, but it cannot govern the….

The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion ….