Limitation quotes

From Motley Bytes Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search

F_Terry_Baker

Thinking Versus Coding Errors

“In short, it is the thinking errors, more than the coding errors, which limit programming productivity.”
Keywords: Programming_quotes Thinking_quotes Productivity_quotes Error_quotes Debugging_quotes Short_quotes Coding_quotes Limitation_quotes

Robert_N_Britcher

One Database

“I went too far. I specified too much detail. I insisted that one relational database connect every element of the software development environment. The subsystem designers and coders soon learned that this elegant solution could not work. Uniformity and commonality have their limits. ... They developed separate databases that could be queried independently. The team succeeded and I learned when to stop.”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 41.
Keywords: Detail_quotes Database_quotes Relational_quotes Element_quotes Software_quotes Development_quotes Design_quotes Programmer_quotes Elegant_quotes Solution_quotes Uniformity_quotes Commonality_quotes Limitation_quotes Independent_quotes Query_quotes Team_quotes Success_quotes Learning_quotes Far_quotes Specify_quotes Insist_quotes Connect_quotes Environment_quotes Subsystem_quotes Coder_quotes Work_quotes Limit_quotes Separate_quotes Stop_quotes

Limits of Testing

“The limits of software are never more obvious than in its testing. Software systems are beyond discrete and statistical analysis. A single incorrect state - out of two to the trillionth states - can down a rocket: To find such a fault in a software system would require a hundred generations of programmers - but after the first failure is found and fixed, all bets are off; they wouldn't be testing the same system anymore. We can design and build fail-safe systems, but can we know we did?”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 56.
Keywords: Limitation_quotes Software_quotes Obvious_quotes Testing_quotes Discrete_quotes Statistics_quotes Analysis_quotes State_quotes Incorrect_quotes Correctness_quotes Error_quotes Rocket_quotes Fault_quotes System_quotes Programmer_quotes Programming_quotes Failure_quotes Correction_quotes Found_quotes Design_quotes Safe_quotes Knowledge_quotes Limit_quotes Beyond_quotes Trillion_quotes Down_quotes Find_quotes Require_quotes Generation_quotes First_quotes Fix_quotes Bet_quotes Off_quotes Fail_Safe_quotes

Alistair_Cockburn

People Characteristics

"People, as active devices, have success modes and failure modes. The following are the main ones that I have named and used to date:
1. People are communicating beings, doing best face-to-face, in person, with real-time question and answer.
2. People have trouble acting consistently over time.
3. People are highly variable, varying from day to day and place to place.
4. People generally want to be good citizens, are good at looking around, taking initiative, and doing 'whatever is needed' to get the project to work.
There are other characteristics that I won’t expand here:
- People need both think time and communicating opportunities...
- People work well from examples...
- People prefer to fail conservatively than to risk succeeding differently; prefer to invent than to research, can only keep a small amount in their heads, and do make mistakes, and find it hard to change their habits.
- Individual personalities easily dominate a project.
- A person’s personality profile strongly affects their ability to perform specific assignments."
Keywords: People_quotes Success_quotes Failure_quotes Communication_quotes Proximity_quotes Real_Time_quotes Question_quotes Consistency_quotes Time_quotes Variability_quotes Citizen_quotes Good_quotes Observation_quotes Flexibility_quotes Altruism_quotes Conservative_quotes Initiative_quotes Project_quotes Risk_quotes Differences_quotes Invention_quotes Innovation_quotes Research_quotes Thinking_quotes Habit_quotes Personality_quotes Ability_quotes Limitation_quotes Consciousness_quotes Cognition_quotes Mistake_quotes Hard_quotes Domination_quotes Assignment_quotes Active_quotes Device_quotes Mode_quotes Beings_quotes Face_quotes Person_quotes Answer_quotes Trouble_quotes Day_quotes Place_quotes Look_quotes Need_quotes Work_quotes Characteristic_quotes Opportunity_quotes Example_quotes Fail_quotes Head_quotes Change_quotes Profile_quotes Affect_quotes Perform_quotes

Edsger_Wybe_Dijkstra

Humble Programmers

"We shall do a much better programming job, provided that we approach the task with a full appreciation of its tremendous difficulty, provided that we stick to modest and elegant programming languages, provided that we respect the intrinsic limitations of the human mind and approach the task as Very Humble Programmers."
  • Source: Edsger Wybe Dijkstra in an article entitled The Humble Programmer. Written by Edsger W. Dijkstra. Published 1972 in Communications of the ACM, volume 15, number 10. DOI: 10.1145/355604.361591.
Keywords: Programming_quotes Appreciation_quotes Difficulty_quotes Modesty_quotes Humility_quotes Elegant_quotes Mind_quotes Limitation_quotes Programmer_quotes Approach_quotes Task_quotes Modest_quotes Language_quotes Respect_quotes Intrinsic_quotes Human_quotes

Competent Programmer

“The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague.”
Keywords: Competence_quotes Programmer_quotes Programming_quotes Limitation_quotes Intelligence_quotes Humility_quotes Trick_quotes Plague_quotes Aware_quotes Size_quotes Skull_quotes Approach_quotes Task_quotes Avoid_quotes Clever_quotes

Henry_Ford

Failure

“An absence of fear of the future and of veneration for the past. One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail. What is past is useful only as it suggests ways and means for progress.”
  • Source: Henry Ford. A book. Entitled My Life and Work. Written by Henry Ford in collaboration with Samuel Crowther. Published 1922, Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Introduction.
    • Also quoted in Samuel Crowther, "Henry Ford's Problem," The Magazine of Business, vol. 52 (1927), p. 182.
Keywords: Absence_quotes Fear_quotes Future_quotes Veneration_quotes Past_quotes Failure_quotes Limitation_quotes Activity_quotes Opportunity_quotes Intelligence_quotes Disgrace_quotes Shame_quotes Suggestion_quotes Progress_quotes

Martin_Fowler

Software Limitations

“Software is not limited by physics, like buildings are. It is limited by imagination, by design, by organization. In short, it is limited by properties of people, not by properties of the world. ‘We have met the enemy, and he is us.’”
  • Source: Article/Author: Martin Fowler; Publication/Date: 2003; Article/Title: “Who Needs an Architect?”; Publication: IEEE Software; Volume: 20; Number: 5; Pages: 11-13; Online: http://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2003.1231144. Retrieval/Date: 2020.
Keywords: Software_quotes Limitation_quotes Building_quotes Imagination_quotes Design_quotes Organization_quotes Physics_quotes Property_quotes People_quotes World_quotes Enemy_quotes

Milton_Friedman

Positive Knowledge

“In both social and natural sciences, the body of positive knowledge grows by the failure of a tentative hypothesis to predict phenomena the hypothesis professes to explain; by the patching up of that hypothesis until someone suggests a new hypothesis that more elegantly or simply embodies the troublesome phenomena, and so on ad infinitum. In both, experiment is sometimes possible, sometimes not (witness meteorology). In both, no experiment is ever completely controlled, and experience often offers evidence that is the equivalent of controlled experiment. In both, there is no way to have a self-contained closed system or to avoid interaction between the observer and the observed. The Gödel theorem in mathematics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, the self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecy in the social sciences all exemplify these limitations.”
  • Source: Milton Friedman, Inflation and Unemployment (1976), 348
Keywords: Society_quotes Nature_quotes Science_quotes Knowledge_quotes Failure_quotes Tentative_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Prediction_quotes Phenomena_quotes Explanation_quotes Elegant_quotes Infinity_quotes Experiment_quotes Meteorology_quotes Control_quotes Evidence_quotes Equal_quotes Closed_quotes System_quotes Avoidance_quotes Interaction_quotes Observation_quotes Measurement_quotes Uncertainty_quotes Mathematics_quotes Principle_quotes Physics_quotes Self-Fulfill_quotes Self-Defeat_quotes Prophecy_quotes Limitation_quotes Positive_quotes Grow_quotes Suggest_quotes Troublesome_quotes Gödel(topic)_quotes Heisenberg(topic)_quotes

John_F_Kennedy

Resources

“Malthus argued a century and a half ago that man, by using up all his available resources, would forever press on the limits of subsistence, thus condemning humanity to an indefinite future of misery and poverty. We can now begin to hope and, I believe, know that Malthus was expressing not a law of nature, but merely the limitation then of scientific and social wisdom. The truth or falsity of his prediction will depend now, with the tools we have, on our own actions, now and in the years to come.”
  • Source: John F. Kennedy, From Address to the Centennial Convocation of the National Academy of Sciences (22 Oct 1963), 'A Century of Scientific Conquest'. Online at The American Presidency Project.
Keywords: Century_quotes Humanity_quotes Resource_quotes Limitation_quotes Subsistence_quotes Condemnation_quotes Indefinite_quotes Future_quotes Misery_quotes Poverty_quotes Hope_quotes Belief_quotes Law_quotes Nature_quotes Science_quotes Wisdom_quotes Society_quotes Truth_quotes Falsehood_quotes Prediction_quotes Dependency_quotes Tool_quotes Action_quotes Scarcity_quotes Abundance_quotes Malthus(topic)_quotes Argue_quotes Man_quotes Express_quotes Year_quotes Malthusian_quotes

Lawrence_M_Krauss

Think the Unthinkable

“Science has taught us to think the unthinkable. Because when nature is the guide—rather than a priori prejudices, hopes, fears or desires — we are forced out of our comfort zone. One by one, pillars of classical logic have fallen by the wayside as science progressed in the 20th century, from Einstein's realization that measurements of space and time were not absolute but observer-dependent, to quantum mechanics, which not only put fundamental limits on what we can empirically know but also demonstrated that elementary particles and the atoms they form are doing a million seemingly impossible things at once.”
  • Source: Lawrence M. Krauss, In op-ed, 'A Universe Without Purpose', Los Angeles Times (1 Apr 2012).
Keywords: Science_quotes Thinking_quotes Unthinkable_quotes Nature_quotes Guide_quotes A_Priori_quotes Hope_quotes Fear_quotes Desire_quotes Force_quotes Comfort_quotes Pillar_quotes Logic_quotes Fall_quotes Progress_quotes Measurement_quotes Realization_quotes Space_quotes Time_quotes Absolute_quotes Observation_quotes Dependence_quotes Quantum_quotes Mechanics_quotes Fundamental_quotes Limitation_quotes Empirical_quotes Demonstration_quotes Elementary_quotes Particle_quotes Atom_quotes Impossibility_quotes Concurrent_quotes Teach_quotes Prejudice_quotes Classical_quotes Einstein(topic)_quotes Know_quotes

Harlan_D_Mills

Thinking Versus Coding Errors

“In short, it is the thinking errors, more than the coding errors, which limit programming productivity.”
Keywords: Programming_quotes Thinking_quotes Productivity_quotes Error_quotes Debugging_quotes Short_quotes Coding_quotes Limitation_quotes

Richard_Pascale

Efficiency and Variation

“Corporations, in the name of efficiency, suppress variation by 'getting all the ducks in line'. To optimize productivity, they evolve highly refined and internally consistent operating systems. Payoff results - as long as the music lasts. But in the face of nontraditional competitors or major environmental discontinuities, all that streamlining and reengineering limits diversity, suppresses self-organization by those closest to the disruptive change, and curtails a bottom-up emergent response to cope more effectively... Nothing fails like success. Over-adaptive organizations become inflexible. Disruptive change leaves them as helpless as a beached whale.”
  • Source: Richard T. Pascale, Jerry Sternin, Monique Sternin (2010). “The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems”, p.190, Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press
Keywords: Efficiency_quotes Corporation_quotes Suppress_quotes Variability_quotes Duck_quotes Optimization_quotes Productivity_quotes Evolution_quotes Refine_quotes Consistency_quotes Operating_System_quotes Pay_quotes Result_quotes Music_quotes Tradition_quotes Competition_quotes Major_quotes Environment_quotes Discontinuity_quotes Streamline_quotes Reengineering_quotes Engineering_quotes Limitation_quotes Diversity_quotes Self-Organization_quotes Organization_quotes Disruption_quotes Change_quotes Helpless_quotes Whale_quotes Line_quotes System_quotes Nontraditional_quotes Bottom-up_quotes Emergent_quotes Response_quotes Cope_quotes Effective_quotes Innovation_quotes Failure_quotes Success_quotes Over-adaptive_quotes Inflexible_quotes Beached_quotes

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.”
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

Steven_Pinker

Computational Theory of Mind

“The computational theory of mind is not the same thing as the despised ‘computer metaphor.’ As many critics have pointed out, computers are serial, doing one thing at a time; brains are parallel, doing millions of things at once. Computers are fast; brains are slow. Computer parts are reliable; brain parts are noisy. Computers have a limited number of connections; brains have trillions. Computers are assembled according to a blueprint; brains must assemble themselves.”
  • Source: Steven Pinker (1997). How the Mind Works. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06973-0; eISBN 978-0-393-06973-0. Chapter 1 Section Reverse-Engineering the Psyche.
Keywords: Computation_quotes Theory_quotes Mind_quotes Despise_quotes Computer_quotes Metaphor_quotes Criticism_quotes Point_quotes Serial_quotes Time_quotes Brain_quotes Parallel_quotes Fast_quotes Slow_quotes Reliability_quotes Part_quotes Noise_quotes Limitation_quotes Number_quotes Connection_quotes Assembly_quotes According_quotes Blueprint_quotes Million_quotes Trillion_quotes

Nicholas_Rescher

Inherent Unpredictability

“The inherent unpredictability of future scientific developments — the fact that no secure inference can be drawn from one state of science to another — has important implications for the issue of the limits of science. It means that present-day science cannot speak for future science: it is in principle impossible to make any secure inferences from the substance of science at one time about its substance at a significantly different time. The prospect of future scientific revolutions can never be precluded. We cannot say with unblinking confidence what sorts of resources and conceptions the science of the future will or will not use. Given that it is effectively impossible to predict the details of what future science will accomplish, it is no less impossible to predict in detail what future science will not accomplish. We can never confidently put this or that range of issues outside 'the limits of science', because we cannot discern the shape and substance of future science with sufficient clarity to be able to say with any assurance what it can and cannot do. Any attempt to set 'limits' to science — any advance specification of what science can and cannot do by way of handling problems and solving questions — is destined to come to grief.”
  • Source: Nicholas Rescher, The Limits of Science (1984), 102-3.
Keywords: Inherent_quotes Prediction_quotes Unpredictability_quotes Future_quotes Science_quotes Development_quotes Progress_quotes Inference_quotes Conclusion_quotes State_quotes Causality_quotes Importance_quotes Imply_quotes Issue_quotes Limitation_quotes Meaning_quotes Present_quotes Day_quotes Speak_quotes Principle_quotes Impossibility_quotes Substance_quotes Time_quotes Significance_quotes Differences_quotes Prospect_quotes Revolution_quotes Preclude_quotes Blink_quotes Confidence_quotes Resource_quotes Conception_quotes Detail_quotes Accomplish_quotes Range_quotes Shape_quotes Sufficient_quotes Clarity_quotes Assurance_quotes Attempt_quotes Specification_quotes Advance_quotes Handle_quotes Problem_quotes Solution_quotes Question_quotes Destiny_quotes Grief_quotes Secure_quotes Outside_quotes Discern_quotes

Herbert_Simon

Psychology of Choice

“Research findings on the psychology of choice, indicate some properties a thermometer of satisfaction should have. First, unlike the utility function, it is not limited to positive values, but has a zero point (of minimal contentment). Above zero, various degrees of satisfaction are experienced, and below zero, various degrees of dissatisfaction. Second, if periodic readings are taken of people in relatively stable life circumstances, we only occasionally find temperatures very far from zero in either direction, and the divergent measurements tend to regress over time back toward the zero mark. Most people consistently register either slightly below zero (mild discontent) or a little above (moderate satisfaction). To deal with these phenomena, psychology employs the concept of aspiration level... Aspiration levels provide a computational mechanism for satisficing.”
Keywords: Research_quotes Find_quotes Psychology_quotes Choice_quotes Indication_quotes Property_quotes Thermometer_quotes Satisfaction_quotes Utility_quotes Limitation_quotes Positive_quotes Value_quotes Zero_quotes Point_quotes Minimum_quotes Content_quotes Degree_quotes Experience_quotes Dissatisfaction_quotes Period_quotes People_quotes Relative_quotes Stable_quotes Life_quotes Circumstance_quotes Occasional_quotes Temperature_quotes Far_quotes Direction_quotes Divergent_quotes Measurement_quotes Regression_quotes Time_quotes Consistency_quotes Register_quotes Discontent_quotes Moderation_quotes Deal_quotes Phenomena_quotes Employment_quotes Conception_quotes Aspiration_quotes Level_quotes Computation_quotes Mechanism_quotes Satisfice_quotes

Game Theory

“Game theory's most valuable contribution has been to show that rationality is effectively undefinable when competitive actors have unlimited computational capabilities for outguessing each other, but that the problem does not arise as acutely in a world, like the real world, of bounded rationality.”
Keywords: Game_quotes Theory_quotes Value_quotes Contribution_quotes Rational_quotes Effectiveness_quotes Definition_quotes Competition_quotes Actor_quotes Unlimited_quotes Limitation_quotes Computation_quotes Capability_quotes Guess_quotes Problem_quotes Arise_quotes Acute_quotes World_quotes Reality_quotes Bounding_quotes Rational_quotes Undefinable_quotes Outguess_quotes

Not Just Optimization

“The subject of computational techniques need not be limited to optimization.”
Keywords: Subject_quotes Computation_quotes Technique_quotes Need_quotes Limitation_quotes Optimization_quotes

Baruch_Spinoza

Human Power

“Human power is extremely limited, and is infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes.”
Keywords: Humanity_quotes Power_quotes Limitation_quotes Infinity_quotes Causality_quotes Extreme_quotes Surpass_quotes External_quotes

Gerald_Weinberg

Egoless Programming and John von Neumann

“Programming groups who have conquered the ego problem do exist and have existed from the earliest days of computing. John von Neumann himself was perhaps the first programmer to recognize his inadequacies with respect to examination of his own work. Those who knew him have said that he was constantly asserting what a lousy programmer he was, and that he incessantly pushed his programs on other people to read for errors and clumsiness. Yet the common image today of von Neumann is of the unparalleled computing genius — flawless in his every action. And indeed, there can be no doubt of von Neumann's genius. His very ability to realize his human limitations put him head and shoulders above the average programmer today. Average people can be trained to accept their humanity — their inability to function like a machine — and to value it and work with others so as to keep it under the kind of control needed if programming is to be successful.”
  • Source: Chapter 4. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
Keywords: Egoless_quotes Programming_quotes Group_quotes Conquer_quotes Ego_quotes Computing_quotes Neumann_quotes Programmer_quotes Recognition_quotes Inadequacy_quotes Examination_quotes Peer_Review_quotes Error_quotes Clumsy_quotes Genius_quotes Flawless_quotes Action_quotes Doubt_quotes Ability_quotes Human_Limitations_quotes Training_quotes Humanity_quotes Functional_quotes Machine_quotes Control_quotes Success_quotes Problem_quotes Exist_quotes Earliest_quotes Respect_quotes Work_quotes Constant_quotes Assert_quotes Lousy_quotes Incessant_quotes Push_quotes People_quotes Read_quotes Image_quotes Unparallel_quotes Realize_quotes Human_quotes Limitation_quotes Head_quotes Shoulder_quotes Above_quotes Average_quotes Inability_quotes Value_quotes

Alfred_North_Whitehead

Rigid Dogma Destroys Truth

“It is rigid dogma that destroys truth; and, please notice, my emphasis is not on the dogma, but on the rigidity. When men say of any question, ‘This is all there is to be known or said of the subject; investigation ends here,' that is death. It may be that the mischief comes not from the thinker but for the use made of his thinking by late-comers. Aristotle, for example, gave us our scientific technique ... yet his logical propositions, his instruction in sound reasoning which was bequeathed to Europe, are valid only within the limited framework of formal logic, and, as used in Europe, they stultified the minds of whole generations of medieval Schoolmen. Aristotle invented science, but destroyed philosophy.”
  • Source: Alfred North Whitehead, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, as recorded by Lucien Price (1954, 2001), 165.
Keywords: Rigidity_quotes Dogma_quotes Destroy_quotes Truth_quotes Emphasis_quotes Men_quotes Say_quotes Question_quotes Knowledge_quotes Subject_quotes Investigation_quotes Death_quotes Mischief_quotes Come_quotes Thinker_quotes Late_quotes Aristotle(topic)_quotes Example_quotes Logic_quotes Science_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Technique_quotes Proposition_quotes Instruction_quotes Sound_quotes Reason_quotes Bequeath_quotes Europe(topic)_quotes Validity_quotes Limitation_quotes Framework_quotes Formal_quotes Stultify_quotes Mind_quotes Generation_quotes Medieval_quotes Schoolmen_quotes Philosophy_quotes Method_quotes

Shoshana_Zuboff

Universal Transparency

“Techniques of universal transparency, even when their goal is to elicit anticipatory conformity, do not benignly serve the interests of authority. Because rationality has no guile, it can also work to limit authority.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 356. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Technique_quotes Universal_quotes Transparency_quotes Goal_quotes Anticipation_quotes Conformity_quotes Benign_quotes Interest_quotes Authority_quotes Rational_quotes Reason_quotes Guile_quotes Limitation_quotes Elicit_quotes Serve_quotes

Steven_S_Zumdahl

Progress of Science

“The progress of science is often affected more by the frailties of humans and their institutions than by the limitations of scientific measuring devices. The scientific method is only as effective as the humans using it. It does not automatically lead to progress.”
  • Source: Steven S. Zumdahl, Chemistry (1989), 6.
Keywords: Progress_quotes Science_quotes Affect_quotes Frail_quotes Human_quotes Institution_quotes Limitation_quotes Measurement_quotes Device_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Methodology_quotes Effectiveness_quotes Usage_quotes Automatic_quotes Lead_quotes
Retrieved from "https://motleybytes.com/wiki/index.php?title=Limitation_quotes&oldid=30905"