Favorite Quotes

I was out to dinner with some friends and was going through a few of my favortie quotes. I realized that I don't have any posted, so here they are:

*All comments are written in first person by Ike.
"Reduce everything to it's essence, so that form harmonizes with function"
Cris Kobryn
Chair, U2 Partners' UML 2.0 Submission Team

"If we pursue the parsimony koan to its full intent, we should find UML modeling projects to be as enjoyable as we found finger-painting and drawing classes in grammer school."
Cris Kobryn
Chair, U2 Partners' UML 2.0 Submission Team

"Do not rely on Rigid, Inefficient Processes (RIP)."
Steve McConnell
Software Project Survival Guide

"Early in the project you can have firm cost and schedule targets or a firm feature set, but not both."
Steve McConnell
Software Project Survival Guide

"There is a word for software that cannot be changed after delivery. That word is hardware."
Ward Cunningham
co-Inventor of Extreme Programming
Preface to Extreme Programming Pocket Guide

"The problem with quick and dirty is that dirty remains long after quick is forgotten."
Unknown

"As a programmer writing computer programs, you must develop a very special relationship with a shadowy being who lurks just beyond the periphery of your vision. At the same time needy, confused, angry, and malicious, that person is known to you only as The User."
Charles Petzold
Programming in the Key of C#

"Some people hold the view that the UML should be used to create a design that is independent of the programming language that's used for implementation. Others believe that language-independent design is an oxymoron, with a strong emphasis on the moron."
Martin Fowler
UML Distilled
I agree with this on most topics, not just on software design, ie database design, T-SQL authoring, multi-platform development. -Ike

"Question: What is the difference between a methodologist and a terrorist?
Answer: You can negotiate with a terrorist."
Martin Fowler
UML Distilled

"You should use iterative development only on projects that you want to succeed.
Perhaps that's a bit glib, but as I get older, I get more aggressive about using iterative development."
Martin Fowler, espousing Extreme Programming
UML Distilled

"Often, you'll find that the more stable packages tend to have a higher proportion of interfaces and abstract classes."
Martin Fowler, espousing Polymorphism
UML Distilled


"The real moments of discovery aren't when someone shouts "Eureka", but when someone mumbles, "Hmmm....that's wierd." "
Carl Sagan

"Too often, however, the metaphor is used to assert that the child class inherits the internals of the parent class, an allusion to the fact that biological organisms inherit the DNA structures of their parents. This is a poor and potentially misleading use of the metaphor....
The desire for a child class to inherit internals of its parent classes can be better accommodated if we change the notion of inheritance from DNA to assets. It has been noted that an object has access to whatever resources it needs to fulfill its behavioural expectations. "
David West
Author of Object Thinking

"The best programmers are up to 28 times better than the worst programmers, according to "individual differences" research. Given that their pay is never commensurate, they are the biggest bargains in the software field."
Robert L. Glass
Author of Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering