The fundamental problem with program maintenance is that fixing a defect has a substantial chance of introducing another.
Fred BrooksRead
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 of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Both programmers and poets create from imagination, using flexible mediums to express ideas.
This quote by Fred Brooks highlights the creative process shared by programmers and poets. It suggests that both professions rely on imagination to build abstract concepts, and emphasizes the flexibility and ease with which they can refine their creations, allowing for the realization of complex ideas and structures in their respective domains.
Themes
ProgrammerPoetImaginationCreationFlexibility
In practice
Example use cases
During a tech conference to inspire innovation in software development.
More from Fred Brooks
All quotes →Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later
Fred BrooksRead
Similar quotes
The outside perception and inside perception of Microsoft are so different. The view of Microsoft inside Microsoft is always kind of an underdog thing.
Bill GatesRead
Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe.
Nikola TeslaRead
Tomorrow there will be no division to Europe and Asia. These are old concepts that would remain only on maps. Everything will be united. Companies will be united. It is a process of structures growing due to the technological progress.
Lech WalesaRead
That has always been the objective of Apple: to do things that really enrich people's lives. That you look back on and you wonder, 'How did I live without this?'
Tim CookRead
The PC is the LSD of the '90s.
Timothy LearyRead
Technology magnifies differences, and it's been replacing or obviating jobs for a long time. But what happens as that case accelerates? I'm not one of these doomsayers who says, 'There will be no jobs.'
Sam AltmanRead