Improve quotes
From Motley Bytes Wiki
Contents
- 1 F_Terry_Baker
- 2 Arthur_Bloch
- 3 Fred Brooks
- 4 Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi
- 5 W_Edwards_Deming
- 6 Peter_Drucker
- 7 David_Epstein
- 8 Samuel_C_Florman
- 9 Robert_Heinlein
- 10 Byron_K_Jennings
- 11 Ray_Kurzweil
- 12 Ipek_Ozkaya
- 13 Parkinson_and_Margulieux
- 14 Alan_Perlis
- 15 Gerald_Weinberg
- 16 Edward_Yourdon
- 17 Shoshana_Zuboff
F_Terry_Baker
Programmer Management
“With each programmer doing his own work in his own way, managers are so busy just trying to find out what's going on and why things don't fit together, that they don't have any opportunity to improve quality and reliability.”
- Source: Baker, F. T. (1975). Software Management Through Improved Programming Technology. ACM ’75: Proceedings of the 1975 Annual Conference, 286–287. https://doi.org/10.1145/800181.810346
- Keywords: Programming_quotes Software_Management_quotes Programmer_quotes Work_quotes Manager_quotes Improve_quotes Technology_quotes
Arthur_Bloch
Finagle's Fourth Law
“Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.”
- Source: Attributed to a fictional character named Finagle, reported in the book "Murphy's Law and Other Reasons Why Things Go Wrong" written by Arthur Bloch, first edition published in 1977 by Price/Stern/Sloan, Los Angeles, California. ISBN-10: 0843104287. ISBN-13: 978-0843104288. Chapter Murphology, page 15.
- Notes: Often attributed to a fictional character named Finagle, its true origin remains uncertain and likely derived from multiple sources. See https://www.devx.com/terms/finagles-law/.
- Keywords: Murphy(topic)_quotes Law_quotes Job_quotes Foul_quotes Anything_quotes Do_quotes Improve_quotes Make_quotes Worse_quotes
Fred Brooks
People Central
“The central question of how to improve the software art centers, as it always has, on people.”
- Source: Brooks Jr., F. P. (1995). The Mythical Man-Month - Essays on Software Engineering (Anniversary Edition) | 1975/1995 (Anniv.). Boston. MA: Addison-Wesley. ISBN: 0201835959. Chapter 16, page 202.
Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi
Flow Experience
“It is not easy to transform ordinary experience into flow, but almost everyone can improve his or her ability to do so...[but] attentional disorders not only interfere with learning, but effectively rule out the possibility of experiencing flow as well... People who can enjoy themselves in a variety of situations have the ability to screen out stimulation and to focus only on what they decide is relevant... The association between the ability to concentrate and flow is clear.”
- Source: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience“, chapter “The Autotelic Personality”, page 83. Original content published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics in 1990. Kindle edition published by Harper Collins in 2008. ISBN: 978-0061876721.
- Keywords: Easy_quotes Transform_quotes Ordinary_quotes Experience_quotes Flow_quotes Improve_quotes Ability_quotes Attention_quotes Disorder_quotes Interfere_quotes Rule_quotes Out_quotes Possibility_quotes Enjoy_quotes Variety_quotes Situation_quotes Screen_quotes Stimulation_quotes Focus_quotes Decide_quotes Relevant_quotes Association_quotes Concentrate_quotes
Hearing and Listening
“It is not the hearing that improves life, it is the listening.”
- Source: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience“, chapter “The Flow of Music”, page 109. Original content published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics in 1990. Kindle edition published by Harper Collins in 2008. ISBN: 978-0061876721.
- Keywords: Hear_quotes Improve_quotes Life_quotes Listen_quotes
W_Edwards_Deming
Mass Inspection and Quality
"We cannot rely on mass inspection to improve quality, though there are times when 100 percent inspection is necessary. As Harold S. Dodge said many years ago, 'You cannot inspect quality into a product.' The quality is there or it isn't by the time it's inspected."
- Source: W. Edwards Deming (1982) Out Of The Crisis. The MIT Press. (2e ed. 1986) p. 139.
- Keywords: Inspection_quotes Testing_quotes Improve_quotes Quality_quotes Rely_quotes Mass_quotes Product_quotes
Peter_Drucker
Big University Relics
“Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics. Universities won't survive. It's as large a change as when we first got the printed book. Do you realize that the cost of higher education has risen as fast as the cost of health care? And for the middle-class family, college education for their children is as much of a necessity as is medical care — without it the kids have no future. Such totally uncontrollable expenditures, without any visible improvement in either the content or the quality of education, means that the system is rapidly becoming untenable. Higher education is in deep crisis.”
- Source: Peter Drucker, “Seeing Things as They Really Are”, Forbes (March 10, 1997)
- Keywords:Year_quotes Big_quotes University_quotes Education_quotes Relic_quotes Survival_quotes Large_quotes Change_quotes First_quotes Printing_quotes Book_quotes Cost_quotes High_quotes Rise_quotes Fast_quotes Health_quotes Care_quotes Middle_quotes Class_quotes Family_quotes College_quotes Children_quotes Necessary_quotes Medicine_quotes Future_quotes Total_quotes Control_quotes Expense_quotes Visibility_quotes Improve_quotes Content_quotes Quality_quotes System_quotes Rapid_quotes Become_quotes Untenable_quotes Uncontrollable_quotes Deep_quotes Crisis_quotes Campus_quotes
David_Epstein
Replication Crisis
“The so-called replication crisis over the last decade has been painful for many scientists, but researchers in every discipline have been learning from it and working to improve their fields. It was, after all, scientists themselves who raised the alarm about their colleagues’ work (and in some cases their own work) in the first place. Increasingly, researchers now share or formally preregister their hypotheses at the start of a project. They can still deviate from the plan to explore unexpected findings, but the deviations are transparent. The point of restricting freedom in this way... is not to stifle inquiry but to make it more valuable.”
- Source: David Epstein in the book “Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better”. Published 2026 by Riverhead Books. Page 39. ISBN 978-0593715734 (Ebook).
- Keywords: Replication_quotes Crisis_quotes Decade_quotes Pain_quotes Science_quotes Research_quotes Discipline_quotes Learn_quotes Work_quotes Improve_quotes Field_quotes Raise_quotes Alarm_quotes Colleague_quotes Case_quotes First_quotes Place_quotes Increase_quotes Share_quotes Formal_quotes Preregister_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Start_quotes Project_quotes Deviation_quotes Plan_quotes Explore_quotes Unexpected_quotes Finding_quotes Transparency_quotes Point_quotes Restrict_quotes Freedom_quotes Way_quotes Stifle_quotes Inquiry_quotes Make_quotes Valuable_quotes
Samuel_C_Florman
Engineer Thinking
“They felt that they were improving the world, not only by their deeds, but also by their way of thinking. If engineers could solve problems by being open-minded and free of preconceptions and prejudices — by applying scientific methods — could not all men learn to think in this mode, and then would not ignorance, superstition and bigotry vanish?”
- Source: From the book “The Existential Pleasures of Engineering” by {Samuel C. Florman}. Second edition published in 1994 by {St. Martin's Press}, New York, NY. First edition published in 1976. Kindle edition published in 2023. E-book ISBN 978-1466842366. Chapter 1, page 7.
- Keywords: Engineer_quotes Feel_quotes Improve_quotes World_quotes Deed_quotes Way_quotes Thinking_quotes Solve_quotes Problem_quotes Being_quotes Open_quotes Minded_quotes Free_quotes Preconception_quotes Prejudice_quotes Apply_quotes Scientific_quotes Method_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Men_quotes Humanity_quotes Learn_quotes Mode_quotes Ignorance_quotes Superstition_quotes Bigotry_quotes Vanish_quotes
Robert_Heinlein
Tomorrow
“Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow if tomorrow might improve the odds.”.
- Source: Written by Robert A. Heinlein in the book “Time Enough for Love”, published in 1973 by Putnam's Sons, ISBN: 0-399-11151-4. ISBN: 9781101503072 (ebook). Page 346 (Kindle edition).
- Keywords: Never_quotes Do_quotes Today_quotes Put_quotes Off_quotes Tomorrow_quotes Improve_quotes Odds_quotes Probability_quotes
Byron_K_Jennings
Crows
“While seeing any number of black crows does not prove all the crows are black, seeing one white crow disproves it. Thus science proceeds not by proving models correct but by discarding false ones or improving incomplete ones.”
- Source: Byron K. Jennings, In 'On the Nature of Science', Physics in Canada (Jan/Feb 2007), 63, No. 1, 7.
Ray_Kurzweil
Improving Technology
“...nearly every aspect of life is getting progressively better as a result of exponentially improving technology.”
- Source: Ray Kurzweil in his book “The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge with AI”, published in 2024 by Random House. ISBN 978-0593152348.
- Keywords: Aspect_quotes Life_quotes Progress_quotes Better_quotes Result_quotes Exponential_quotes Improve_quotes Technology_quotes
Ipek_Ozkaya
Next Generation Software Engineers
“With LLMs and their sister AI-driven apps assisting developers, we need to be teaching next-generation software engineers when to trust, how to create evidence to trust, how to do trust assessment rapidly and correctly, and how to improve such assistants.”
- Source: Ipek Ozkaya, “Application of Large Language Models to Software Engineering Tasks: Opportunities, Risks, and Implications,” in IEEE Software, volume 40, number 3, pages 4-8, May-June 2023, DOI: 10.1109/MS.2023.3248401.
- Keywords: LLM_quotes Large_quotes Language_quotes Model_quotes Sister_quotes AI_quotes Artificial_quotes Intelligence_quotes App_quotes Application_quotes Assist_quotes Developer_quotes Need_quotes Teach_quotes Next_quotes Generation_quotes Software_quotes Engineer_quotes Trust_quotes Create_quotes Evidence_quotes Assessment_quotes Rapid_quotes Correct_quotes Improve_quotes Assistant_quotes
Parkinson_and_Margulieux
Spatial Skills
“Higher spatial reasoning skills universally correlate with better STEM [Science Technology Engineering Mathematics] performance and achievement... This correlation is particularly interesting because spatial skills can be trained, and spatial skills training globally improves STEM performance and achievement.”
- Source: From the journal article entitled “Improving CS Performance by Developing Spatial Skills”, in Communications of the ACM, volume 68, number 1, 2025-01. DOI:10.1145/3680409.
Alan_Perlis
Useful Software Systems
“We recognize that a practical problem of considerable difficulty and importance has arisen: The successful design, production and maintenance of useful software systems. The importance is obvious and the more so since we see only greater growth in demands and requirements in the future. The consequences of poor performance, poor design, instability and mismatching of promise and performance are not going to be limited to the computing fraternity, or even their nearest neighbors, but will affect considerable sections of our society whose ability to forgive is inversely proportional to their ignorance of the difficulties we face. The source of difficulty is distributed through the whole problem, easy to identify, and yet its cure is hard to pinpoint so that systematic improvement can be gotten.”
- Source: Alan Jay Perlis in a report entitled Software Engineering: Report of a Conference Sponsored by the NATO Science Committee. Chaired by Friedrich Ludwig Bauer. Edited by P. Naur; B. Randell. Conference held 1968-10-07 through 1968-10-11 in Garmisch, Germany. OCLC: 35337842. See http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/index.html ; http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/nato1968.PDF ; https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1102020 ; https://books.google.com/books/about/Software_engineering.html?id=Uc9QAAAAYAAJ . Page 78, Keynote address.
- Keywords: Usefulness_quotes Practical_quotes Problem_quotes Difficulty_quotes Importance_quotes Arise_quotes Success_quotes Design_quotes Production_quotes Maintain_quotes Software_quotes System_quotes Obvious_quotes Great_quotes Growth_quotes Demand_quotes Requirements_quotes Consequence_quotes Poor_quotes Performance_quotes Instability_quotes Mismatch_quotes Promise_quotes Go_quotes Limitation_quotes Computing_quotes Fraternity_quotes Near_quotes Neighbor_quotes Affect_quotes Considerable_quotes Section_quotes Society_quotes Ability_quotes Forgiveness_quotes Inverse_quotes Proportion_quotes Ignorance_quotes Face_quotes Source_quotes Distributed_quotes Easy_quotes Identify_quotes Cure_quotes Hard_quotes Pinpoint_quotes Improve_quotes
Failure and Success
“Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.”
- Source: Perlis, A. J. (1982). Special Feature: Epigrams on programming. ACM SIGPLAN Notices, 17(9), 7–13. http://doi.org/10.1145/947955.1083808
Gerald_Weinberg
Programming Not an Individual Task
“The ideas expressed in the preceding paragraph (of programmer individuality) are possibly the most formidable barrier to improved programming that we shall encounter. First of all, if this is indeed the image generally held of the programming profession, then people will be attracted to, or repelled from, entering the profession according to their preference for working alone or working with others.”
- Source: Chapter 4. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
- Keywords: Programming_quotes Individual_quotes Barrier_quotes Professional_quotes People_quotes Preference_quotes Alone_quotes Group_quotes Team_quotes Work_quotes Attract_quotes Repel_quotes Idea_quotes Express_quotes Preceding_quotes Paragraph_quotes Possibly_quotes Formidable_quotes Improve_quotes Encounter_quotes Image_quotes Generally_quotes Held_quotes Cooperation_quotes
Edward_Yourdon
Better Business
“To stay in business, you have to be better — better than you were last year, better than you were yesterday. But you can't improve if you don't know your current situation.”
- Source: Edward Yourdon in the book “Decline and Fall of the American Programmer”. Published in 1992 by Prentice Hall. ISBN: 0-13-203670-3. Chapter 3, section 7.1, page 170.
- Keywords: Metric_quotes Stay_quotes Business_quotes Be_quotes Better_quotes Year_quotes Last_quotes Yesterday_quotes Improve_quotes Know_quotes Current_quotes Situation_quotes
Shoshana_Zuboff
Pay and Promotion
“As operators' skills improved, so did their dissatisfaction with the pay and promotion system.”
- Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 412. ISBN:0465032125.
- Keywords: Operator_quotes Skill_quotes Satisfaction_quotes Pay_quotes Promotion_quotes Compensation_quotes System_quotes Improve_quotes Dissatisfaction_quotes