"The management question, therefore, is not whether to build a pilot system and throw it away. You will do that. Hence plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow."

Fred Brooks Science See all quotes by Fred Brooks →

React to this quote

More by Fred Brooks

“The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one. Hence, descriptions of a software entity that abstract away its complexity often abstracts away its essence.”

“How does a project get to be a year late? … One day at a time.”

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

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

“A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects, those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers.”

“…the organization chart will initially reflect the first system design, which is almost surely not the right one as one learns, he changes the design . Management structures also need to be changed as the system changes…”

Resonant Thoughts

"Consider the situation. There you are, forehead like a set of balconies, worrying about the long-term effects of all this new 'fire' stuff on the environment, you're being chased and eaten by most of …"

— Terry Pratchett

Literature1948–2015

#philosophy

"Censure," says a late ingenious author, "is the tax a man plays for being eminent." It is a folly for an eminent man to think of escaping it, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious…"

— Joseph Addison

Politics1672–1719

#philosophy

"Been on the river thirty years, York. Rafted down to New Orleans when I was just a boy, and worked flatboats and keelboats both before steamers. I been a pilot and a mate and a striker, even a mud cle…"

— George R. R. Martin

Literature1948

#justice

"Now the maximum of perfection is called ideal, by Plato, Idea — for instance, his Idea of a Republic — and is the principle of all that is contained under the general notion of any perfection, inasmuc…"

— Immanuel Kant

Philosophy1724–1804

#politics