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Douglas_Adams

Don't Panic

“In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Don't Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover”.
  • Source: Adams, D. (1979). ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. New York, NY: Harmony Books.
Keywords: Panic_quotes Repository_quotes Knowledge_quotes Wisdom_quotes Accuracy_quotes Relax_quotes Civilization_quotes Galaxy_quotes Guide_quotes Encyclopedia_quotes Galactica_quotes Hiker_quotes Standards_quotes Omission_quotes Apocryphal_quotes Wild_quotes Inaccurate_quotes Score_quotes Old_quotes Pedestrian_quotes Work_quotes Cheap_quotes Word_quotes Inscribe_quotes Large_quotes Friendly_quotes Letter_quotes Cover_quotes

Agile Manifesto Signatories

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

“We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
* Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
* Working software over comprehensive documentation.
* Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
* Responding to change over following a plan.
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.”
  • Source: Kent Beck; James Grenning; Robert C. Martin; Mike Beedle; Jim Highsmith; Steve Mellor; Arie van Bennekum; Andrew Hunt; Ken Schwaber; Alistair Cockburn; Ron Jeffries; Jeff Sutherland; Ward Cunningham; Jon Kern; Dave Thomas; Martin Fowler; Brian Marick (2001). 'Manifesto for Agile Software Development'. Agile Alliance. https://agilemanifesto.org/ Retrieved 14 June 2010.
    • © 2001, the above authors. This declaration may be freely copied in any form, but only in its entirety through this notice.
Keywords: Manifesto_quotes Agile_quotes Software_quotes Development_quotes Uncover_quotes Better_quotes Do_quotes Help_quotes Work_quotes Value_quotes Individual_quotes Interaction_quotes Process_quotes Tool_quotes Comprehensive_quotes Documentation_quotes Customer_quotes Collaboration_quotes Contract_quotes Negotiate_quotes Respond_quotes Change_quotes Follow_quotes Plan_quotes

Francis_Bacon

Axioms

“It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active.”
  • Source: Sir Francis Bacon, From Novum Oranum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 24. Translated as The New Organon: Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man), collected in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 4, 51.
Keywords: Mathematics_quotes Axiom_quotes Reason_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Establish_quotes Argument_quotes Avail_quotes Discover_quotes Work_quotes Nature_quotes Great_quotes Subtle_quotes Order_quotes Particular_quotes Easy_quotes Render_quotes Science_quotes Active_quotes

F_Terry_Baker

Programmer Clerks

“...programmers typically get less programming done than they could because they do a great deal of clerical work directly.”
  • 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 Productivity_quotes Programmer_quotes Typical_quotes Clerical_quotes Work_quotes Direct_quotes

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

Friedrich_Ludwig_Bauer

Software Engineering Definition

“(Software engineering is the) establishment and use of sound engineering principles to obtain economically software that is reliable and works on real machines efficiently.”
  • Source: [Bauer; 1972]. A paper entitled Software Engineering. Written by Friedrich Ludwig Bauer. Published 1972 in Information Processing 71: Proceedings of Ifip Congress 1971, volume 1. ISBN: 9780720420630.
Keywords: Software_Engineering_quotes Cost_quotes Reliability_quotes Efficiency_quotes Software_quotes Engineering_quotes Establish_quotes Use_quotes Sound_quotes Principle_quotes Obtain_quotes Economical_quotes Work_quotes Real_quotes Machine_quotes

Reinout_Willem_van_Bemmelen

Validity of Hypothesis

“The functional validity of a working hypothesis is not a priori certain, because often it is initially based on intuition. However, logical deductions from such a hypothesis provide expectations (so-called prognoses) as to the circumstances under which certain phenomena will appear in nature. Such a postulate or working hypothesis can then be substantiated by additional observations ... The author calls such expectations and additional observations the prognosis-diagnosis method of research. Prognosis in science may be termed the prediction of the future finding of corroborative evidence of certain features or phenomena (diagnostic facts). This method of scientific research builds up and extends the relations between the subject and the object by means of a circuit of inductions and deductions.”
  • Source: Reinout Willem van Bemmelen. In 'The Scientific Character of Geology', The Journal of Geology (Jul 1961), 69, No. 4, 454-5.
Keywords: Hypothesis_quotes Certainty_quotes Validity_quotes Intuition_quotes Logic_quotes Deduction_quotes Expectation_quotes Nature_quotes Observation_quotes Confirmation_quotes Prognosis_quotes Diagnosis_quotes Induction_quotes Science_quotes Research_quotes Subject_quotes Object_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Functional_quotes Work_quotes Provide_quotes Circumstance_quotes Method_quotes Prediction_quotes Future_quotes Corroborate_quotes Evidence_quotes Feature_quotes Phenomenon_quotes Build_quotes Extend_quotes Relation_quotes Circuit_quotes

Arthur_Bloch

Finagle's First Law

“If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.”
  • 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.
Keywords: Murphy(topic)_quotes Law_quotes Experiment_quotes Work_quotes Go_quotes Wrong_quotes Something_quotes

Finagle's Rules

1. “To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you start.”
2. “Always keep a record of data — it indicates you've been working.”
3. “Always draw your curves, then plot your reading.”
4. “In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.”
5. “Experiments should be reproducible — they should all fail in the same way.”
6. “Do no believe in miracles — rely on them.”
  • 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 publish in 1977 by Price/Stern/Sloan, Los Angeles, California. ISBN-10: 0843104287. ISBN-13: 978-0843104288. Chapter Murphology, page 16.
Keywords: Murphy(topic)_quotes Law_quotes Study_quotes Subject_quotes Best_quotes Understand_quotes Before_quotes Start_quotes Always_quotes Keep_quotes Record_quotes Data_quotes Indicate_quotes Work_quotes Draw_quotes Curve_quotes Plot_quotes Read_quotes Case_quotes Doubt_quotes Make_quotes Sound_quotes Convince_quotes Experiment_quotes Reproducible_quotes Fail_quotes Same_quotes Way_quotes Believe_quotes Miricle_quotes Rely_quotes

Tycho_Brahe

Instruments of Copernicus

“If Nicolaus Copernicus, the distinguished and incomparable master, in this work had not been deprived of exquisite and faultless instruments, he would have left us this science far more well-established.”
  • Source: Letter Tycho Brahe (20 Jan 1587) to Christopher Rothman, chief astronomer of the Landgrave of Hesse.
Keywords: Copernicus(topic)_quotes Distinguish_quotes Incomparable_quotes Master_quotes Work_quotes Deprive_quotes Exquisite_quotes Faultless_quotes Instrument_quotes Left_quotes Science_quotes Far_quotes Well_quotes Establish_quotes Astronomy_quotes

Robert_N_Britcher

Human Element

“The real scoop on programming and software is the human element. I didn't know Alan Turing or John von Neuman or the other inventors, but I've known plenty of programmers. We are just like everyone, part this, part that. Except we have to deal with enormous complexity, which springs upon us only after we are too far into what started out to be kind of fun - coding an algorithm and watching it run on a machine. Then it's too late and it all becomes work, very stressful work.”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 28.
Keywords: Programming_quotes Software_quotes Humanity_quotes Programmer_quotes Complexity_quotes Algorithm_quotes Machine_quotes Work_quotes Stress_quotes Real_quotes Scoop_quotes Element_quotes Human_quotes Turing(topic)_quotes Neuman(topic)_quotes Inventor_quotes Plenty_quotes Part_quotes Deal_quotes Enormous_quotes Spring_quotes Far_quotes Start_quotes Fun_quotes Coding_quotes Watch_quotes Run_quotes Late_quotes

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

Fred_Brooks

Programmer Poetry

“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.”
  • 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 1, page 7.
Keywords: Programming_quotes Programmer_quotes Creativity_quotes Software_quotes Thinking_quotes Imagination_quotes Flexibility_quotes Poetry_quotes Poet_quotes Work_quotes Slight_quotes Remove_quotes Pure_quotes Build_quotes Castle_quotes Air_quotes Create_quotes Exertion_quotes Polish_quotes Rework_quotes Capable_quotes Realize_quotes Grand_quotes Concept_quotes Structure_quotes

Great Designs

“Great designs have conceptual integrity — unity, economy, clarity. They not only work, they delight, as Vitruvius first articulated.”
  • Source: Brooks Jr., F. P. (2010). The Design of Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley. ISBN: 978-0-201-36298-5. Chapter 1, page 8.
Keywords: Design_quotes Integrity_quotes Unity_quotes Economy_quotes Clarity_quotes Functional_quotes Delight_quotes Great_quotes Concept_quotes Work_quotes First_quotes Articulate_quotes Vitruvius(topic)_quotes

Promotions out of Design

“Designers get promoted out of design. Consequently, few designers will work in any depth on as many as 100 projects over a working life.”
  • Source: Brooks Jr., F. P. (2010). The Design of Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley. ISBN: 978-0-201-36298-5. Chapter 3, page 24.
Keywords: Design_quotes Promotion_quotes Project_quotes Career_quotes Designer_quotes Consequence_quotes Work_quotes Depth_quotes Life_quotes

History Studies What Does Not Work

“The most potent reason to study design history is to learn what doesn’t work, and why.”
  • Source: Brooks Jr., F. P. (2010). The Design of Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley. ISBN: 978-0-201-36298-5. Chapter 3, page 25.
Keywords: Study_quotes History_quotes Design_quotes Failure_quotes Uselessness_quotes Potent_quotes Reason_quotes Learning_quotes Work_quotes

Rational Model

“Perhaps the most devastating critique of the Rational Model, although perhaps the hardest to prove, is that most experienced designers just don’t work that way.”
  • Source: Brooks Jr., F. P. (2010). The Design of Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley. ISBN: 978-0-201-36298-5. Chapter 3, page 30.
Keywords: Rational_quotes Model_quotes Software_Engineering_quotes Software_Lifecycle_quotes Proof_quotes Experience_quotes Design_quotes Devastate_quotes Critique_quotes Hard_quotes Designer_quotes Work_quotes Software_quotes Engineering_quotes Lifecycle_quotes

Warren_Buffett

Money Versus Business

“So as a practical matter we need management with the businesses that we buy and three times out of four thereabouts the manager is the owner and is receiving tens of millions maybe hundreds of millions of dollars so they don't have to work and we have to decide in that time when we meet them whether they love the business or love money... I'm not making a moral judgment about whether it's better to love the business or love money but it's very important for me to know which which of the two is the primary motivator with them... so all all we have to do is avoid anything that on our part that diminishes that love of the business or makes other conditions so intolerable that they overcome that love of the business. We have a number of people working for us that have no financial need to work at all and they probably outwork 95 percent or more of the people in the world and they do it because they just they love smacking the ball.”
Keywords: Practical_quotes Matter_quotes Management_quotes Business_quotes Owner_quotes Receive_quotes Money_quotes Work_quotes Decide_quotes Love_quotes Morality_quotes Judgment_quotes Knowledge_quotes Diminish_quotes Motivator_quotes Primary_quotes Avoid_quotes Condition_quotes Intolerable_quotes Overcome_quotes People_quotes Financial_quotes Need_quotes Outwork_quotes Do_quotes Smack_quotes Ball_quotes

Anthony_Burgess

Art Begins With Craft

“Art begins with craft, and there is no art until a craft has been mastered. You can't create unless you're willing to subordinate the creative impulse to the construction of a form. But the learning of a craft takes time, and we all think we're entitled to short cuts. Art is rare and sacred and hard work, and there ought to be a wall of fire around it.”
  • Source: Anthony Burgess (1986). But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen?: Homage to Qwert Yuiop, and Other Writings, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Keywords: Art_quotes Craft_quotes Creativity_quotes Construction_quotes Learning_quotes Time_quotes Shortcut_quotes Rare_quotes Sacred_quotes Hard_quotes Difficulty_quotes Fire_quotes Wall_quotes Master_quotes Subordinate_quotes Impulse_quotes Form_quotes Work_quotes

Francis_Chisholm

Chisholm's 3rd Law of Human Interaction

“Chisholm's 3rd Law of Human Interaction. Purposes, as understood by the purposer, will be judged otherwise by others.
Corollary 1: If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will.
Corollary 2: If you do something which you are sure will meet with everybody’s approval, somebody won’t like it.
Corollary 3: Procedures devised to implement the purpose won’t quite work.
Corollary 4: No matter how long or how many times you explain, no one is listening.”
  • Source: From the essay “The Chisholm Effect” by Francis P. Chisholm, included in the anthology “A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown: Essays for a Scientific Age” edited by Robert A. Baker, published by Prentice Hall in 1982. ISBN: 0138526087, ISBN: 978-0138526085.
Keywords: Law_quotes Chisholm(topic)_quotes Human_quotes Interaction_quotes Purpose_quotes Understood_quotes Judge_quotes Explain_quotes Clear_quotes Nobody_quotes Misunderstand_quotes Do_quotes Meet_quotes Everybody_quotes Approve_quotes Somebody_quotes Like_quotes Procedure_quotes Devise_quotes Implement_quotes Work_quotes Matter_quotes Long_quotes Time_quotes Listen_quotes

Richard_Clarke_Cabot

Real Life

"'Real Life,' then, if it is to mean the nourishing, sustaining, and development of existence, demands work, play, love, and so much of the material and spiritual conditions as make these possible."
Keywords: Life_quotes Existence_quotes Work_quotes Play_quotes Love_quotes Real_quotes Meaning_quotes Nourish_quotes Sustain_quotes Development_quotes Demand_quotes Material_quotes Spiritual_quotes Condition_quotes Possible_quotes

Play Art Work

"...play and art can be closely woven into the fabric of work, till drudgery is reduced to a minimum;"
Keywords: Play_quotes Art_quotes Work_quotes Drudgery_quotes Weave_quotes Fabric_quotes Reduce_quotes

Alistair_Cockburn

Formal Development

"In the formal development of communications software, in 1987, I was given the motivation, 'The problem with software development is that there is too much ambiguity in the problem statement and in the design description. Things will go better if we get people to work with mathematical formalisms.” After some work in this area, I discovered:
Problem 1. The people on the projects were not interested in learning our system.
Problem 2. They were successfully able to ignore us, and were still delivering software, anyway.
I shifted out of formal development, hearing my formal development colleagues saying, 'The problem lies in the training. Things will go better if we start training students in the necessary mathematics earlier, i.e., secondary school.' Based on what I have learned about people, I expect this will be a frustrated desire. It is not that I doubt certain advantages of formal development, but I do doubt our ability to coax 10**6 people to master it. The question should become, 'Under what circumstances, and with what assignment, should a formal specialist be called in?'"

Source: Cockburn, A. A. R. (1999). Characterizing people as non-linear 1st order components in software development. HaT Technical Report 1999.03, Humans and Technology, Inc.. Retrieved 2019-06-29 from https://ameyakarve.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/characterizing-people-as-non-linear-1st-order-components-in-software-development-cockburn-us/.

Keywords: Formality_quotes Methodology_quotes Software_quotes Development_quotes Ambiguity_quotes Design_quotes Specification_quotes Requirements_quotes Training_quotes Education_quotes Specialization_quotes Communication_quotes Motivation_quotes Problem_quotes Statement_quotes Description_quotes People_quotes Work_quotes Mathematics_quotes Learning_quotes Success_quotes Ignore_quotes Deliver_quotes Colleague_quotes Student_quotes School_quotes Frustration_quotes Desire_quotes Advantage_quotes Circumstance_quotes Assignment_quotes Master_quotes

Striking Project Findings

"What I find striking about these projects is that they show:
Almost any methodology can be made to work on some project.
Any methodology can manage to fail on some project.
Heavy processes can be successful.
Light processes are more often successful, and more importantly, the people on those projects credit the success to the lightness of the methodology."
Keywords: Formality_quotes Methodology_quotes Process_quotes Development_quotes Project_quotes Heavy_quotes Light_quotes Success_quotes Failure_quotes Strike_quotes Show_quotes Work_quotes People_quotes Finding_quotes

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

Stephen_Covey

Wrong Wall

"It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall."
  • Source: From the book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey, Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind, page 98, published 1988 by Free Press: A Division of Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.
Keywords: Incredible_quotes Easy_quotes Caught_quotes Up_quotes Activity_quotes Trap_quotes Busy_quotes Life_quotes Work_quotes Hard_quotes Climb_quotes Ladder_quotes Success_quotes Discovery_quotes Lean_quotes Wrong_quotes Wall_quotes

Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi

Culture Shields

“One of the major functions of every culture has been to shield its members from chaos, to reassure them of their importance and ultimate success…. An unrealistic trust in the shields, in the cultural myths, can lead to equally extreme disillusion when they fail... The shields that have worked in the past — the order that religion, patriotism, ethnic traditions, and habits instilled by social classes used to provide — are no longer effective for increasing numbers of people who feel exposed to the harsh winds of chaos.”
  • Source: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience“, chapter “The Shields of Culture”, page 11. Original content published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics in 1990. Kindle edition published by Harper Collins in 2008. ISBN: 978-0061876721.
Keywords: Major_quotes Function_quotes Culture_quotes Shield_quotes Member_quotes Chaos_quotes Reassure_quotes Important_quotes Ultimate_quotes Success_quotes Unrealistic_quotes Trust_quotes Myth_quotes Lead_quotes Disillusion_quotes Fail_quotes Work_quotes Past_quotes Order_quotes Religion_quotes Patriotism_quotes Ethnic_quotes Habit_quotes Instill_quotes Social_quotes Class_quotes Provide_quotes Effective_quotes Increase_quotes Number_quotes People_quotes Feel_quotes Expose_quotes Harsh_quotes Wind_quotes

DeMarco and Lister

Project Failures

"We observe that about 15 percent of all projects studied came to naught: They were canceled or aborted or 'postponed' or they delivered products that were never used. For bigger projects, the odds are even worse. Fully 25 percent of projects that lasted 25 work-years or more failed to complete. In the early surveys, we discarded these failed data points and analyzed the others. Since 1979, though, we’ve been contacting whoever is left of the project staff to find out what went wrong. For the overwhelming majority of the bankrupt projects we studied, there was not a single technological issue to explain the failure."
  • Source: Book:: Entitled: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Edition: 3rd. Written by: Tom DeMarco; Tim Lister. Date published: 1987; 1999; 2013. Publisher: Addison-Wesley. Country: USA; GBR; CAN; DEU; FRA; ESP; ZAF; AUS; JPN; SGP; MEX. Language: en. ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0-321-93411-6 (alk paper); 0-321-93411-3 (alk paper). Chapter: 1 (Somewhere Today, a Project Is Failing).
Keywords: Observation_quotes Project_quotes Failure_quotes Abort_quotes Postponement_quotes Unused_quotes Big_quotes Probability_quotes Work_quotes Effort_quotes Bankruptcy_quotes Technology_quotes Cancel_quotes Deliver_quotes Odds_quotes Complete_quotes Survey_quotes Discard_quotes Analyze_quotes Contact_quotes Majority_quotes Bankrupt_quotes Explain_quotes

Project Politics

"The cause of failure most frequently cited by our survey participants was 'politics.' But now observe that people tend to use this word rather sloppily. Included under 'politics' are such unrelated or loosely related things as communication problems, staffing problems, disenchantment with the boss or with the client, lack of motivation, and high turnover. People often use the word politics to describe any aspect of the work that is people-related, but the English language provides a much more precise term for these effects: They constitute the project’s sociology. The truly political problems are a tiny and pathological subset."
  • Source: Book:: Entitled: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Edition: 3rd. Written by: Tom DeMarco; Tim Lister. Date published: 1987; 1999; 2013. Publisher: Addison-Wesley. Country: USA; GBR; CAN; DEU; FRA; ESP; ZAF; AUS; JPN; SGP; MEX. Language: en. ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0-321-93411-6 (alk paper); 0-321-93411-3 (alk paper). Chapter: 1 (Somewhere Today, a Project Is Failing).
Keywords: Failure_quotes Survey_quotes Political_quotes Observation_quotes People_quotes Sloppy_quotes Imprecise_quotes Communication_quotes Staffing_quotes Human_Resources_quotes Management_quotes Boss_quotes Disenchantment_quotes Client_quotes Motivation_quotes Turnover_quotes Sociology_quotes Project_quotes Pathological_quotes Resource_quotes Cause_quotes Frequent_quotes Participant_quotes Aspect_quotes Work_quotes Language_quotes Precise_quotes Term_quotes Effect_quotes

People Related Problems

"Whatever you name these people-related problems, they’re more likely to cause you trouble on your next assignment than all the design, implementation, and methodology issues you’ll have to deal with. In fact, that idea is the underlying thesis of this whole book: The major problems of our work are not so much technological as sociological in nature."
  • Source: Book:: Entitled: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Edition: 3rd. Written by: Tom DeMarco; Tim Lister. Date published: 1987; 1999; 2013. Publisher: Addison-Wesley. Country: USA; GBR; CAN; DEU; FRA; ESP; ZAF; AUS; JPN; SGP; MEX. Language: en. ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0-321-93411-6 (alk paper); 0-321-93411-3 (alk paper). Chapter: 1 (Somewhere Today, a Project Is Failing).
Keywords: People_quotes Trouble_quotes Problem_quotes Assignment_quotes Design_quotes Implementation_quotes Methodology_quotes Thesis_quotes Work_quotes Technology_quotes Sociology_quotes Development_quotes Management_quotes Project_quotes Name_quotes Cause_quotes Nature_quotes

Seldom Manage That Way

"Most managers are willing to concede the idea that they’ve got more people worries than technical worries. But they seldom manage that way. They manage as though technology were their principal concern. They spend their time puzzling over the most convoluted and most interesting puzzles that their people will have to solve, almost as though they themselves were going to do the work rather than manage it. They are forever on the lookout for a technical whizbang that promises to automate away part of the work. The most strongly people-oriented aspects of their responsibility are often given the lowest priority."
  • Source: Book:: Entitled: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Edition: 3rd. Written by: Tom DeMarco; Tim Lister. Date published: 1987; 1999; 2013. Publisher: Addison-Wesley. Country: USA; GBR; CAN; DEU; FRA; ESP; ZAF; AUS; JPN; SGP; MEX. Language: en. ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0-321-93411-6 (alk paper); 0-321-93411-3 (alk paper). Chapter: 1 (Somewhere Today, a Project Is Failing).
Keywords: Manager_quotes People_quotes Worry_quotes Technology_quotes Seldom_quotes Principal_quotes Concern_quotes Time_quotes Puzzle_quotes Convoluted_quotes Solution_quotes Delegation_quotes Trust_quotes Work_quotes Management_quotes Whizbang_quotes Automation_quotes Development_quotes Project_quotes Responsibility_quotes Priority_quotes Concede_quotes Idea_quotes Interesting_quotes Lookout_quotes Promise_quotes Aspect_quotes

The Light Is Better There

“The main reason we tend to focus on the technical rather than the human side of the work is not because it’s more crucial, but because it’s easier to do. Getting the new disk drive installed is positively trivial compared to figuring out why Horace is in a blue funk or why Susan is dissatisfied with the company after only a few months. Human interactions are complicated and never very crisp and clean in their effects, but they matter more than any other aspect of the work. If you find yourself concentrating on the technology rather than the sociology, you’re like the vaudeville character who loses his keys on a dark street and looks for them on the adjacent street because, as he explains, ‘The light is better there.’”
  • Source: Book: Entitled: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Edition: 3rd. Written by: Tom DeMarco; Tim Lister. Date published: 1987; 1999; 2013. Publisher: Addison-Wesley. Country: USA; GBR; CAN; DEU; FRA; ESP; ZAF; AUS; JPN; SGP; MEX. Language: en. ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0-321-93411-6 (alk paper); 0-321-93411-3 (alk paper). Chapter: 1 (Somewhere Today, a Project Is Failing).
Keywords: Reason_quotes Focus_quotes Humanity_quotes Work_quotes Critical_quotes Easy_quotes Sociology_quotes Technology_quotes Street_quotes Key_quotes Dark_quotes Light_quotes Priority_quotes Trivial_quotes Funk_quotes Dissatisfied_quotes Company_quotes Complexity_quotes Aspect_quotes Concentrate_quotes Vaudeville_quotes Character_quotes Better_quotes

Cheeseburgers

"Development is inherently different from production. But managers of development and allied efforts often allow their thinking to be shaped by a management philosophy derived entirely from a production environment.
Imagine for the moment that you’re the manager of the local fast food franchise. It makes perfect sense for you to take any or all of the following efficient production measures:
- Squeeze out error. Make the machine (the human machine) run as smoothly as possible.
- Take a hard line about people goofing off on the job.
- Treat workers as interchangeable pieces of the machine.
- Optimize the steady state. (Don’t even think about how the operation got up to speed, or what it would take to close it down.)
- Standardize procedure. Do everything by the book.
- Eliminate experimentation—that’s what the folks at headquarters are paid for.
These would be reasonable approaches if you were in the fast food business (or any production environment), but you’re not. The 'make a cheeseburger, sell a cheeseburger' mentality can be fatal in your development area. It can only serve to damp your people’s spirits and focus their attention away from the real problems at hand. This style of management will be directly at odds with the work.
To manage thinking workers effectively, you need to take measures nearly opposite those listed above."
  • Source: Book: Entitled: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Edition: 3rd. Written by: Tom DeMarco; Tim Lister. Date published: 1987; 1999; 2013. Publisher: Addison-Wesley. Country: USA; GBR; CAN; DEU; FRA; ESP; ZAF; AUS; JPN; SGP; MEX. Language: en. ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0-321-93411-6 (alk paper); 0-321-93411-3 (alk paper). Chapter: 2 (Make a Cheeseburger, Sell a Cheeseburger).
Keywords: Cheeseburger_quotes Differences_quotes Production_quotes Development_quotes Manager_quotes Management_quotes Thinking_quotes Philosophy_quotes Environment_quotes Fast_Food_quotes Efficiency_quotes Error_quotes Machine_quotes Humanity_quotes Job_quotes Work_quotes Goofing_Off_quotes Worker_quotes Interchangeable_quotes Fungibility_quotes Status_Quo_quotes Optimization_quotes Change_quotes Steady_State_quotes Innovation_quotes Standards_quotes Book_quotes Experiment_quotes Headquarter_quotes Mentality_quotes Fatal_quotes Damp_quotes Imagination_quotes Steady_quotes State_quotes Eliminate_quotes Reason_quotes Make_quotes Sell_quotes Problem_quotes Effective_quotes Opposite_quotes

Error Quota

"For most thinking workers, making an occasional mistake is a natural and healthy part of their work. But there can be an almost Biblical association between error on the job and sin. This is an attitude we need to take specific pains to change. Speaking to a group of software managers, we introduced a strategy for what we think of as iterative design. The idea is that some designs are intrinsically defect-prone; they ought to be rejected, not repaired. Such dead ends should be expected in the design activity. The lost effort of the dead end is a small price to pay for a clean, fresh start. To our surprise, many managers felt this would pose an impossible political problem for their own bosses: 'How can we throw away a product that our company has paid to produce?' They seemed to believe that they’d be better off salvaging the defective version even though it might cost more in the long run. Fostering an atmosphere that doesn’t allow for error simply makes people defensive. They don’t try things that may turn out badly. You encourage this defensiveness when you try to systematize the process, when you impose rigid methodologies so that staff members are not allowed to make any of the key strategic decisions lest they make them incorrectly. The average level of technology may be modestly improved by any steps you take to inhibit error. The team sociology, however, can suffer grievously. The opposite approach would be to encourage people to make some errors. You do this by asking your folks on occasion what dead-end roads they’ve been down, and by making sure they understand that 'none' is not the best answer. When people blow it, they should be congratulated — that’s part of what they’re being paid for."
  • Source: Book: Entitled: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Edition: 3rd. Written by: Tom DeMarco; Tim Lister. Date published: 1987; 1999; 2013. Publisher: Addison-Wesley. Country: USA; GBR; CAN; DEU; FRA; ESP; ZAF; AUS; JPN; SGP; MEX. Language: en. ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0-321-93411-6 (alk paper); 0-321-93411-3 (alk paper). Chapter: 2 (Make a Cheeseburger, Sell a Cheeseburger).
Keywords: Thinking_quotes Worker_quotes Mistake_quotes Work_quotes Natural_quotes Biblical_quotes Error_quotes Job_quotes Sin_quotes Attitude_quotes Change_quotes Software_quotes Manager_quotes Strategy_quotes Iterative_quotes Design_quotes Defect_quotes Intrinsic_quotes Rejection_quotes Repair_quotes Dead_End_quotes Failure_quotes Fail_Early_quotes Activity_quotes Effort_quotes Cost_quotes Clean_quotes Fresh_quotes Impossibility_quotes Political_quotes Problem_quotes Environment_quotes Atmosphere_quotes Defensive_quotes Try_quotes Systematic_quotes Process_quotes Rigidity_quotes Methodology_quotes Technology_quotes Team_quotes Sociology_quotes Suffering_quotes Encouragement_quotes Congratulate_quotes

Kicking Ass

"Management is a complex enough thing to defy simple definition, but that nuance was lost on one senior manager we encountered at a professional society meeting in London. He summed up his entire view of the subject with this statement: 'Management is kicking ass.' This equates to the view that managers provide all the thinking and the people underneath them just carry out their bidding. Again, that might be workable for cheeseburger production, but not for any effort for which people do the work with their heads rather than their hands. Everyone in such an environment has got to have the brain in gear. You may be able to kick people to make them active, but not to make them creative, inventive, and thoughtful. Even if kicking people in the backside did boost their short-term productivity, it might not be useful in the long run. There is nothing more discouraging to any worker than the sense that his own motivation is inadequate and has to be 'supplemented' by that of the boss. The saddest thing about this management approach is that it’s almost always superfluous. You seldom need to take Draconian measures to keep your people working; most of them love their work. You may even have to take steps sometimes to make them work less, and thus get more meaningful work done."
  • Source: Book: Entitled: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Edition: 3rd. Written by: Tom DeMarco; Tim Lister. Date published: 1987; 1999; 2013. Publisher: Addison-Wesley. Country: USA; GBR; CAN; DEU; FRA; ESP; ZAF; AUS; JPN; SGP; MEX. Language: en. ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0-321-93411-6 (alk paper); 0-321-93411-3 (alk paper). Chapter: 2 (Make a Cheeseburger, Sell a Cheeseburger).
Keywords: Management_quotes Complexity_quotes Manager_quotes Nuance_quotes Kicking_quotes Thinking_quotes Worker_quotes Cheeseburger_quotes Production_quotes Environment_quotes Brain_quotes Activity_quotes Creativity_quotes Invention_quotes Productivity_quotes Short_Term_quotes Long_Run_quotes Discouragement_quotes Motivation_quotes Inadequate_quotes Superfluous_quotes Draconian_quotes Work_quotes Meaning_quotes

Edsger_Wybe_Dijkstra

Two Kinds of System Designers

“There are two classes of system designers. The first, if given five problems will solve them one at a time. The second will come back and announce that these aren’t the real problems, and will eventually propose a solution to the single problem which underlies the original five. This is the ‘system type’ who is great during the initial stages of a design project. However, you had better get rid of him after the first six months if you want to get a working system.”
Keywords: Class_quotes System_quotes Design_quotes Problem_quotes Project_quotes Requirements_quotes Solve_quotes Real_quotes Underlie_quotes Initial_quotes Rid_quotes Work_quotes

Simplicity

“Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.”
Keywords: Simplicity_quotes Virtue_quotes Work_quotes Education_quotes Appreciation_quotes Complexity_quotes Sell_quotes

Paul_Dirac

Beauty in Equations

“I think there is a moral to this story, namely that it is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment. It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty into one's equations, and if one has a really sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress.”
  • Source: Paul Dirac, "The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature". Article republished from May 1963 issue of Scientific American, blogs.scientificamerican.com. June 25, 2010.
Keywords: Moral_quotes Story_quotes Importance_quotes Beauty_quotes Equation_quotes Experiment_quotes Insight_quotes Progress_quotes Elegance_quotes Fit_quotes Work_quotes View_quotes Line_quotes

Arthur_Conan_Doyle

Brain Race

“To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces.”

  • Source: Words of the fictional character Sherlock Holmes. Written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the short story “The Adventure of the Devil's Foot”. Published in 1910 as part of the series “His Last Bow”. Online at https://sherlock-holm.es/stories/pdf/a4/1-sided/devi.pdf, retrieved 2024.
Keywords: Brain_quotes Work_quotes Sufficient_quotes Material_quotes Race_quotes Engine_quotes Rack_quotes Piece_quotes

Peter_Drucker

Ordering Others About

“It does not follow from the separation of planning and doing in the analysis of work that the planner and the doer should be two different people. It does not follow that the industrial world should be divided into two classes of people: a few who decide what is to be done, design the job, set the pace, rhythm and motions, and order others about; and the many who do what and as they are told.”
  • Source: Peter Drucker, “The Practice of Management” New York,: Harper, 1st ed. 1954 ; Routledge, 2012, p. 284.
Keywords: Follow_quotes Separation_quotes Plan_quotes Do_quotes Analysis_quotes Work_quotes Differences_quotes Human_quotes People_quotes Industry_quotes World_quotes Divide_quotes Class_quotes Few_quotes Decision_quotes Design_quotes Set_quotes Pace_quotes Rhythm_quotes Motion_quotes Order_quotes Told_quotes

Learning is Promise

“In book subjects a student can only do a student's work. All that can be measured is how well he learns, rather than how well he performs. All he can show is promise.”
  • Source: Peter F. Drucker, “Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World”, New York: Harper & Row, 1959. p. 144.
Keywords: Book_quotes Subject_quotes Student_quotes Work_quotes Measurement_quotes Learning_quotes Performance_quotes Show_quotes Promise_quotes

Knowledge Workers

“The newly emerging dominant group is 'knowledge workers.' The very term was unknown forty years ago. (I coined it in a 1959 book, Landmarks of Tomorrow.) By the end of this century knowledge workers will make up a third or more of the work force in the United States-- as large a proportion as manufacturing workers ever made up, except in wartime. The majority of them will be paid at least as well as, or better than, manufacturing workers ever were. And the new jobs offer much greater opportunities.”
  • Source: Peter Drucker, “The Age of Social Transformation”, The Atlantic Monthly; Nov. 1994; Vol. 274, No. 5. p. 53-80.
Keywords: Emergence_quotes Domination_quotes Group_quotes Knowledge_quotes Worker_quotes Term_quotes Unknown_quotes Year_quotes Coin_quotes Book_quotes Tomorrow_quotes End_quotes Century_quotes Work_quotes Force_quotes United_States_quotes Large_quotes Proportion_quotes Manufacture_quotes Wartime_quotes Majority_quotes Pay_quotes Better_quotes Job_quotes Great_quotes Opportunity_quotes

Albert_Einstein

Magnificent Applied Science

“Why does this magnificent applied science which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it. In war it serves that we may poison and mutilate each other. In peace it has made our lives hurried and uncertain. Instead of freeing us in great measure from spiritually exhausting labor, it has made men into slaves of machinery, who for the most part complete their monotonous long day's work with disgust and must continually tremble for their poor rations... It is not enough that you should understand about applied science in order that your work may increase man's blessings. Concern for the man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours; concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.”
  • Source: Albert Einstein [Speaker];
    • 1950-02-16 [Speech/Date]; California Institute of Technology [Location]; CalTech students [Audience];
    • 1950-02-17 [Reporting/Article/Date]; “Einstein Sees Lack in Applying Science” [Title]; Anonymous [Article/Author]; New York Times [Reporting/Newspaper]; 8 [Page];
Keywords: Science_quotes Happiness_quotes War_quotes Wisdom_quotes Peace_quotes Work_quotes Slavery_quotes Automation_quotes Ethics_quotes Values_quotes Empathy_quotes Labor_quotes Distribution_quotes Mind_quotes Humanity_quotes Mathematics_quotes Engineering_quotes Magnificent_quotes Applied_quotes Save_quotes Life_quotes Simple_quotes Answer_quotes Learn_quotes Sensible_quotes Poison_quotes Mutilate_quotes Hurry_quotes Uncertain_quotes Freedom_quotes Spiritual_quotes Exhausting_quotes Men_quotes Machinery_quotes Monotonous_quotes Long_quotes Day_quotes Disgust_quotes Continual_quotes Tremble_quotes Poor_quotes Rations_quotes Understand_quotes Increase_quotes Blessing_quotes Man_quotes Fate_quotes Chief_quotes Interest_quotes Technical_quotes Endeavour_quotes Concern_quotes Problem_quotes Unsolved_quotes Organization_quotes Creation_quotes Curse_quotes Mankind_quotes Forget_quotes Diagram_quotes Equation_quotes

David_Epstein

Knowledge Bridge

“Work that builds bridges between disparate pieces of knowledge is less likely to be funded, less likely to appear in famous journals, more likely to be ignored upon publication, and then more likely in the long run to be a smash hit in the library of human knowledge.”
  • Source: David Epstein in the book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World”. Published 2019 by Riverhead Books. Chapter 12, page 282. ISBN 978-0735214484.
Keywords: Work_quotes Build_quotes Between_quotes Disparate_quotes Piece_quotes Knowledge_quotes Less_quotes Likely_quotes Fund_quotes Appear_quotes Famous_quotes Journal_quotes Ignore_quotes Publication_quotes Long_quotes Run_quotes Smash_quotes Hit_quotes Library_quotes Human_quotes

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

Michael_Faraday

Work Finish Publish

“The secret is comprised in three words — Work, finish, publish.”
  • Source: Michael Faraday. His well-known advice to the young William Crookes, who had asked him the secret of his success as a scientific investigator, as quoted in Michael Faraday (1874) by John Hall Gladstone, p. 123.
Keywords: Secret_quotes Work_quotes Finishing_quotes Publishing_quotes

Henry_Ford

Thinking is Hard

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”
  • Source: As quoted in The High School Teacher, Vol. XI (1935), p. 60.
Keywords: Thinking_quotes Hard_quotes Difficulty_quotes Probability_quotes Reason_quotes Work_quotes Few_quotes

Excess Organization

“That which one has to fight hardest against in bringing together a large number of people to do work is excess organization and consequent red tape. To my mind there is no bent of mind more dangerous than that which is sometimes described as the ”genius for organization.” This usually results in the birth of a great big chart showing, after the fashion of a family tree, how authority ramifies.”
  • 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. Chapter VI.
Keywords: Fight_quotes Hard_quotes People_quotes Work_quotes Excess_quotes Organization_quotes Red_Tape_quotes Mind_quotes Danger_quotes Genius_quotes Birth_quotes Chart_quotes Authority_quotes Hierarchy_quotes Bureaucracy_quotes Family_quotes Tree_quotes

Repetitive Labour

“Repetitive labour – the doing of one thing over and over again and always in the same way – is a terrifying prospect to a certain kind of mind. It is terrifying to me.”
  • 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. Chapter VII.
Keywords: Repetition_quotes Labor_quotes Work_quotes Fear_quotes Mind_quotes Same_quotes Terrify_quotes Prospect_quotes Kind_quotes

Capital

“Capital that is not constantly creating more and better jobs is more useless than sand. Capital that is not constantly making conditions of daily labour better and the reward of daily labour more just, is not fulfilling its highest function. The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more service for the betterment of life. Unless we in our industries are helping to solve the social problem, we are not doing our principal work.”
  • 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. Chapter XIII.
Keywords: Capital_quotes Create_quotes Constant_quotes Better_quotes Job_quotes Uselessness_quotes Sand_quotes Labor_quotes Justice_quotes Fulfill_quotes Function_quotes High_quotes Money_quotes Life_quotes Industry_quotes Society_quotes Problem_quotes Work_quotes Principal_quotes Reward_quotes Daily_quotes Service_quotes Help_quotes Solve_quotes

Sylvester_James_Gates

Strange Codes

“In my research I found this very strange thing, I was driven to error-correcting codes —they’re what make browsers work. So why were they in the equations I was studying about quarks and electrons and supersymmetry? This brought me to the stark realization that I could no longer say people like Max [Tegmark] are crazy.”
Keywords: Research_quotes Find_quotes Strange_quotes Code_quotes Error_quotes Correcting_quotes Browser_quotes Work_quotes Equation_quotes Study_quotes Quark_quotes Electron_quotes Supersymmetry_quotes Stark_quotes Realize_quotes Say_quotes Tegmark(topic)_quotes Crazy_quotes

Murray_Gell-Mann

Curiosity

“My colleagues in elementary particle theory in many lands [and I] are driven by the usual insatiable curiosity of the scientist, and our work is a delightful game. I am frequently astonished that it so often results in correct predictions of experimental results. How can it be that writing down a few simple and elegant formulae, like short poems governed by strict rules such as those of the sonnet or the waka, can predict universal regularities of Nature?”
  • Source: Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel Banquet Speech (10 Dec 1969), in Wilhelm Odelberg (ed.),Les Prix Nobel en 1969 (1970).
Keywords: Particle_quotes Theory_quotes Curiosity_quotes Insatiable_quotes Science_quotes Work_quotes Game_quotes Correctness_quotes Prediction_quotes Experiment_quotes Result_quotes Simplicity_quotes Elegance_quotes Formula_quotes Mathematics_quotes Poetry_quotes Rule_quotes Repeatability_quotes Nature_quotes Universal_quotes

Gordon_Glegg

Engineers and Designers Are Human

“Throughout this book we have talked about 'designers' and 'engineers' and sought, by analysing their work, to find general and helpful maxims. But there is a danger in doing this, for we may forget that a 'designer' or 'engineer' is first and foremost a human being. A human being who designs or engineers has, in addition, a wide range of complicated and interacting emotions. It is easy to become emotionally involved in a new invention and so resent criticism of it even when that criticism, if heeded, would turn a failure into a success. Confidence may be blinded by conceit or undermined by an inferiority complex. History has shown that many new inventions were not inventions at all; they were re-inventions. The idea was not new but the determination to press through with it was. Character is the foundation of ability. Develop as large a safety margin as you can against such things as laziness, impatience, prejudice and arrogance and all the other human failings that inhibit constructive achievement in all spheres, especially that of creative engineering design.”
  • Source: Glegg, G. L. (1969). The Design of Design. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978-0-511-79996-9. Chapter 6, page 92.
Keywords: Design_quotes Engineering_quotes Work_quotes Maxim_quotes Danger_quotes Forget_quotes Humanity_quotes Complexity_quotes Emotion_quotes Invention_quotes Criticism_quotes Resentment_quotes Failure_quotes Success_quotes Confidence_quotes Conceit_quotes Inferior_quotes History_quotes Idea_quotes Determination_quotes Character_quotes Ability_quotes Safe_quotes Lazy_quotes Impatience_quotes Prejudice_quotes Arrogance_quotes Achievement_quotes Sphere_quotes Creativity_quotes Analyze_quotes Human_quotes Interacting_quotes Heed_quotes Blind_quotes Reinvention_quotes Inhibit_quotes Constructive_quotes

Engineering Qualifications

“If you can do maths, engineering is waiting for you... There is one overriding qualification: you will never be a good engineer if you are frightened by hard work or responsibility.”
  • Source: Glegg, G. L. (1969). The Design of Design. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978-0-511-79996-9. Chapter 2, page 25.
Keywords: Mathematics_quotes Engineering_quotes Qualification_quotes Word_quotes Effort_quotes Responsibility_quotes Fear_quotes Wait_quotes Override_quotes Frighten_quotes Hard_quotes Work_quotes

Eugene_Grace

Cooperation

“In college and universities each student is given problems to work out, always by himself, never in cooperation with others. The present-day method of education may be suitable enough for lawyers, doctors, ministers, etc., but it is certainly not suitable for men who are going to enter engineering, industry, commerce, or business of any kind, where the very soul of success is cooperation with others.”
Keywords: College_quotes University_quotes Education_quotes Student_quotes Problem_quotes Work_quotes Cooperation_quotes Methodology_quotes Lawyer_quotes Doctor_quotes Minister_quotes Suitability_quotes Man_quotes Engineering_quotes Industrial_quotes Commerce_quotes Business_quotes Soul_quotes Success_quotes Method_quotes Suitable_quotes

Robert_M_Graham

Wright Brothers Construction

“We tend to go on for years, with tremendous investments to find that the system, which was not well understood to start with, does not work as anticipated. We build systems like the Wright brothers built airplanes — build the whole thing, push it off the cliff, let it crash, and start over again.”
Keywords: Software_Engineering_quotes System_quotes Investment_quotes Cost_quotes Understanding_quotes Requirements_quotes Anticipation_quotes Prediction_quotes Airplane_quotes Cliff_quotes Crash_quotes Repeatability_quotes Tend_quotes Year_quotes Work_quotes Build_quotes WrightBrothers_quotes

Stuart_Hameroff

Brain Neurons

“Well I used to think as other people do that the brain is a computer and I think instead, as I have said before, it's more of a multi-scale hierarchical system. More like a musical system in some sense. I'd refer to it as a quantum orchestra. Because I think the computational metaphor doesn't work because, well it works to a point but it treats neurons  as simple on/off switches and that's an insult to neurons... If you go inside neurons there's all this interesting, I hate to use the word complex because I think complexity is often the last refuge of the bewildered. Just say it's complex and that explains everything which I think is wrong. But you have all this structure, these microtubules doing all this interesting quantum stuff and quantum computation reducing by OR [Orchestrated Objective Reduction/Orch OR] is not the kind of computation I was disillusioned with. So, I'd say that one thing is that the brain is a multi-scale hierarchal system more like music than a classical computer.”
  • Source: Stuart Hameroff speaking in the YouTube video entitled “Sir Roger Penrose & Stuart Hameroff: Collapsing a theory of quantum consciousness? Part 2 (248)” on the channel entitled “Dr Brian Keating” streamed live 2022-08-05, retrieved 2024-04-17 from <https://www.youtube.com/live/OoDi856wLPM?si=XJrLm0AVUIl_dECG>.
Keywords: Think_quotes People_quotes Brain_quotes Computer_quotes Multi-Scale_quotes Hierarchical_quotes Music_quotes Quantum_quotes System_quotes Sense_quotes Orchestra_quotes Metaphor_quotes Work_quotes Point_quotes Treat_quotes Neuron_quotes Simple_quotes On-Off_quotes Switch_quotes Insult_quotes Inside_quotes Interest_quotes Hate_quotes Complex_quotes Last_quotes Refuge_quotes Bewilder_quotes Say_quotes Explain_quotes Everything_quotes Wrong_quotes Structure_quotes Microtubule_quotes Stuff_quotes Computation_quotes Reduce_quotes Orch-OR_quotes Kind_quotes Disillusion_quotes Classical_quotes

Stephen_Hawking

Cosmology

“Cosmology used to be considered a pseudoscience and the preserve of physicists who might have done some useful work in their earlier years but who had gone mystic in their dotage.”
  • Source: Stephen Hawking in his book “The Nature of Space and Time”, Chapter Five, page 75. Published by Princeton University Press in 1996.
Keywords: Cosmology_quotes Consider_quotes Pseudoscience_quotes Preserve_quotes Physicist_quotes Useful_quotes Work_quotes Earlier_quotes Year_quotes Mystic_quotes Dotage_quotes

Joseph_Heller

Mysterious Ways

“‘And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways,’ Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection. ‘There’s nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing. Or else He’s forgotten all about us. That’s the kind of God you people talk about — a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?’”
  • Source: Heller, Joseph. 'Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition'. Chapter 18 'The Soldier Who Saw Everything Twice', page 207. Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
Keywords: God_quotes Work_quotes Mysterious_quotes Play_quotes Forget_quotes Kind_quotes People_quotes Talk_quotes Country_quotes Bumpkin_quotes Clumsy_quotes Bungling_quotes Brainless_quotes Conceited_quotes Uncouth_quotes Hayseed_quotes Reverence_quotes Supreme_quotes Being_quotes Necessary_quotes Phenomena_quotes Phlegm_quotes Tooth_quotes Decay_quotes Divine_quotes System_quotes Creation_quotes World_quotes Warp_quotes Evil_quotes Scatological_quotes Mind_quotes Rob_quotes Old_quotes Power_quotes Control_quotes Bowel_quotes Movement_quotes Pain_quotes

Tony_Hoare

All Problems Technical

“Basically, all problems are technical. If you know what you want to do and you have the necessary technical background, there is no point in making a great management problem out of it. Obviously, a certain amount of resource control and personnel work has to go on but that’s all. On the other hand, you might have a task which is difficult in that you don’t know what you have to do, and that even if you did you wouldn’t know how to do it. Since this is a very difficult task you can start out with the hypothesis that it will take a great number of people. Following down this slippery slope of reasoning, as soon as you have a very large number of people you have a very large management problem. But it all originated out of the fact that you didn’t know what you were doing, or how to do it.”
  • Source: C.A.R.Hoare in Ercoli, P., Bauer, F. L., Aron, J. D., & Hoare, C. A. R. (1970). Software Engineering Techniques: Report on a Conference Sponsored by the NATO Science Committee, Rome, Italy, 27th to 31 October 1969. (J. N. Buxton & B. Randell, Eds.). Retrieved from http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/nato1969.PDF.
Keywords: Problem_quotes Technology_quotes Knowledge_quotes Management_quotes Resource_quotes Control_quotes Personnel_quotes Work_quotes Difficulty_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Effort_quotes Slippery_quotes Slope_quotes Reason_quotes Large_quotes Ignorance_quotes Want_quotes Necessary_quotes Background_quotes Task_quotes People_quotes Originate_quotes Fact_quotes

Brooks_Jackson and Kathleen_Hall_Jamieson

Psychology

“Psychology ... tells us that we rarely work through reasons and evidence in a systematic way; weighing information carefully and suspending the impulse to draw conclusions. Instead, much of the time we use mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that save us mental effort. These habits often work reasonably well, but they also can lead us to conclusions we might dismiss if we applied more thought.”
  • Source: Brooks Jackson, As co-author with Kathleen Hall Jamieson, in unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation (2007), 70.
Keywords: Psychology_quotes Work_quotes Reason_quotes Evidence_quotes System_quotes Weighing_quotes Information_quotes Careful_quotes Suspend_quotes Impulse_quotes Conclusion_quotes Mind_quotes Thinking_quotes Shortcut_quotes Rule_quotes Thumb_quotes Effort_quotes Habit_quotes Dismiss_quotes

John_Maynard_Keynes

Leisure

“To those who sweat for their daily bread leisure is a longed-for sweet — until they get it.”
  • Source: From the Essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” written by John Maynard Keynes in 1930. Included in the book “Essays in Persuasion” edited by John Maynard Keynes and published by W. W. Norton & Company in 1963.
Keywords: Sweat_quotes Daily_quotes Bread_quotes Leisure_quotes Long_quotes Sweet_quotes Until_quotes Get_quotes Work_quotes Labor_quotes

Hollis_A_Kinslow

System Problems

“There are two classes of system designers. The first, if given five problems will solve them one at a time. The second will come back and announce that these aren’t the real problems, and will eventually propose a solution to the single problem which underlies the original five. This is the ‘system type’ who is great during the initial stages of a design project. However, you had better get rid of him after the first six months if you want to get a working system.”
Keywords: Design_quotes System_quotes Problem_quotes Compliance_quotes Creativity_quotes Optimal_quotes Analysis_Paralysis_quotes Project_quotes Class_quotes Solve_quotes Time_quotes Announce_quotes Real_quotes Propose_quotes Solution_quotes Underlie_quotes Initial_quotes Stage_quotes Rid_quotes Work_quotes

Kenneth_W_Kolence

Large System Evolution

“Large systems must evolve, and cannot be produced all at one time. You must have an initial small core system that works really well.”
Keywords: Large_quotes System_quotes Evolution_quotes Production_quotes Incremental_quotes Concurrent_quotes Time_quotes Small_quotes Core_quotes Quality_quotes Initial_quotes Work_quotes Well_quotes

Donald_Knuth

Software is Hard

“My main conclusion after spending ten years of my life working on the TEX project is that software is hard. It’s harder than anything else I’ve ever had to do.”
  • Source: Donald E. Knuth in the paper entitled All Questions Answered. Published in Notices of the AMS, volume 49, number 3 (March 2002).
Keywords: Conclusion_quotes Work_quotes Project_quotes Software_quotes Programming_quotes Hard_quotes

Peter_Medawar

Scientific Creativity

“To be creative, scientists need libraries and laboratories and the company of other scientists; certainly, a quiet and untroubled life is a help. A scientist's work is in no way deepened or made more cogent by privation, anxiety, distress, or emotional harassment. To be sure, the private lives of scientists may be strangely and even comically mixed up, but not in ways that have any special bearing on the nature and quality of their work. If a scientist were to cut off an ear, no one would interpret such an action as evidence of an unhappy torment of creativity; nor will a scientist be excused any bizarrerie, however extravagant, on the grounds that he is a scientist, however brilliant.”
  • Source: Sir Peter B. Medawar, In Advice to a Young Scientist (1979), 40
Keywords: Creativity_quotes Science_quotes Library_quotes Laboratory_quotes Quiet_quotes Trouble_quotes Life_quotes Deep_quotes Cogent_quotes Privation_quotes Anxiety_quotes Distress_quotes Emotion_quotes Harass_quotes Privacy_quotes Strange_quotes Comical_quotes Mixed_Up_quotes Special_quotes Nature_quotes Work_quotes Cut_quotes Ear_quotes Interpretation_quotes Action_quotes Evidence_quotes Unhappy_quotes Torment_quotes Bizarre_quotes Extravagent_quotes Grounds_quotes Brilliant_quotes Help_quotes Bearing_quotes Quality_quotes Excuse_quotes

Robert_K_Merton

Publishing Ideas

“Only when he has published his ideas and findings has the scientist made his contribution, and only when he has thus made it part of the public domain of scholarship can he truly lay claim to it as his own. For his claim resides only in the recognition accorded by peers in the social system of science through reference to his work.”
  • Source: Robert King Merton, In The Sociology of Science: An Episodic Memoir (1977), 47. As quoted and cited in David A. Kronick, The Literature of the Life Sciences: Reading, Writing, Research (1985), 89. This has been summarized as a paradox “the more freely the scientist gives his intellectual property away, the more securely it becomes his property” by Mengxiong Liu, in 'The Complexity of Citation Practice: A Review of Citation Studies', The Journal of Documentation (1993), 49, No. 4, 372.
Keywords: Publishing_quotes Idea_quotes Science_quotes Contribution_quotes Public_quotes Public_Domain_quotes Scholarship_quotes Claim_quotes Recognition_quotes Peer_quotes Peer_Review_quotes Society_quotes Reference_quotes Work_quotes Finding_quotes

John_von_Neumann

Science Models

“The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work — that is, correctly to describe phenomena from a reasonably wide area.”
  • Source: John von Neumann, 'Method in the Physical Sciences', in The Unity of Knowledge, edited by L. Leary (1955), 158. Reprinted in John Von Neumann, F. Bródy (ed.) and Tibor Vámos (ed.), The Neumann Compendium (2000), 628.
Keywords: Science_quotes Explanation_quotes Mathematics_quotes Construct_quotes Sole_quotes Precision_quotes Expectation_quotes Work_quotes Correctness_quotes Description_quotes Phenomena_quotes Reason_quotes Wide_quotes Area_quotes Interpret_quotes Model_quotes Verbal_quotes Observation_quotes Justification_quotes Correct_quotes

David_E_Nye

Programmers Perfectionists

“A single error in a program thousands of lines long prevented it from running correctly, and computer programmers became known as a fanatically exact group of perfectionists, working in an arcane specialty. Sociologists studying the ‘man-machine' interface found that a programmer's personality often changed after prolonged exposure to the computer, becoming severely logical and machine-like.”
  • Source: A book. Written by David E. Nye. Entitled 'Narratives and Spaces'. Published in 1997 by Univerity of Exeter Press, Exeter, UK. Hardback ISBN 0-85989-555-6. Paperback ISBN 0-85989-556-4. Chapter 10, page 164.
Keywords: Single_quotes Error_quotes Program_quotes Thousand_quotes Line_quotes Long_quotes Prevent_quotes Run_quotes Correct_quotes Computer_quotes Programmer_quotes Fanatic_quotes Exact_quotes Group_quotes Perfectionist_quotes Work_quotes Arcane_quotes Specialty_quotes Sociologist_quotes Study_quotes Man_quotes Machine_quotes Interface_quotes Find_quotes Personality_quotes Change_quotes Prolong_quotes Exposure_quotes Severe_quotes Logical_quotes Software_quotes Engineering_quotes Software_Engineering_quotes

Roger_Penrose

Self-Evident Truth

“Like so many works that have had a great impact on human thinking, it [Schrödinger's book ‘What is Life’] makes points that, once they are grasped, have a ring of almost self-evident truth; yet they are still blindly ignored by a disconcertingly large proportion of people who should know better.”

Keywords: Work_quotes Impact_quotes Human_quotes Thinking_quotes Point_quotes Grasp_quotes Ring_quotes Self-evident_quotes Truth_quotes Truism_quotes Life_quotes Blind_quotes Ignore_quotes Disconcerting_quotes Proportion_quotes People_quotes Knowledge_quotes Better_quotes Schrödinger(topic)_quotes

Alan_Perlis

Fit and Try

“Fundamentally, the procedure you mention, which is ‘fit-and-try’, will work very well with three or four people. If you have a hundred people the ‘fit-and-try’ process diverges because of lack of control.”
Keywords: Fundamental_quotes Mention_quotes Process_quotes Procedure_quotes Fit_quotes Try_quotes Work_quotes People_quotes Software_quotes Software_Engineering_quotes Development_quotes

First Software Engineering Conference

“This is the first conference ever held on software engineering and it behooves us to take this conference quite seriously since it will likely set the tone of future work in this field”
Keywords: First_quotes Conference_quotes Software_Engineering_quotes Serious_quotes Tone_quotes Future_quotes Work_quotes Field_quotes Software_quotes Engineering_quotes

Training

“Our problems arise from demands, appetites, and our exuberant optimism. They are magnified by the unevenly trained personnel with which we work. In our deliberations we will not, I believe, be able to avoid the education problem — software engineering does not exist without software engineers.”
Keywords: Problem_quotes Arise_quotes Demand_quotes Appetite_quotes Exuberant_quotes Magnify_quotes Uneven_quotes Training_quotes Personnel_quotes Work_quotes Deliberation_quotes Belief_quotes Avoidance_quotes Education_quotes Software_Engineering_quotes Optimism_quotes Engineering_quotes Engineer_quotes Software_quotes

Error-Free Programs

“There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.”
Keywords: Error_quotes Free_quotes Quality_quotes Defect_quotes Program_quotes Programming_quotes Writing_quotes Work_quotes Way_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.”
Keywords: Deal_quotes Failure_quotes Easy_quotes Work_quotes Hard_quotes Improve_quotes Success_quotes Handle_quotes Solution_quotes Wrong_quotes Problem_quotes Requirements_quotes

Steven_Pinker

Assumptions

“Only an angel could be a general problem-solver; we mortals have to make fallible guesses from fragmentary information. Each of our mental modules solves its unsolvable problem by a leap of faith about how the world works, by making assumptions that are indispensable but indefensible — the only defense being that the assumptions worked well enough in the world of our ancestors.”
  • 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: Angel_quotes Assumption_quotes Generality_quotes Problem_quotes Solution_quotes Mortality_quotes Fallible_quotes Guess_quotes Fragment_quotes Information_quotes Mental_quotes Module_quotes Unsolvable_quotes Leap_quotes Faith_quotes World_quotes Work_quotes Indespensible_quotes Indefensible_quotes Defense_quotes Enough_quotes Ancestor_quotes Problem-Solver_quotes World_quotes

Computational Mind Probabilistic

“The computational theory thus embraces an alternative kind of computer with many elements that are active to a degree corresponding to the probability that some statement is true or false, and in which the activity levels change smoothly to register new and roughly accurate probabilities. (As we shall see, that may be the way the brain works.) The key idea is that the answer to the question 'What makes a system smart?' is not the kind of stuff it is made of or the kind of energy flowing through it, but what the parts of the machine stand for and how the patterns of changes inside it are designed to mirror truth-preserving relationships (including probabilistic and fuzzy truths).”
  • 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 2 Section: The search for Intelligent Life in the Universe.
Keywords: Computation_quotes Theory_quotes Embrace_quotes Alternative_quotes Kind_quotes Computer_quotes Element_quotes Activity_quotes Degree_quotes Correspondence_quotes Probability_quotes Statement_quotes True_quotes False_quotes Level_quotes Change_quotes Smooth_quotes Register_quotes Rough_quotes Accuracy_quotes Sight_quotes Way_quotes Brain_quotes Work_quotes Key_quotes Idea_quotes Answer_quotes Question_quotes System_quotes Smart_quotes Stuff_quotes Energy_quotes Flow_quotes Part_quotes Machine_quotes Stand_quotes Pattern_quotes Inside_quotes Design_quotes Mirror_quotes Fuzzy_quotes Truth_quotes Preservation_quotes Mind_quotes

James_Randi

Science Is Best Defined

“Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work.”
  • Source: James Randi, The Mask of Nostradamus: The Prophecies of the World's Most Famous Seer (1993), Page 66.
Keywords: Science_quotes Definition_quotes Careful_quotes Logic_quotes Search_quotes Knowledge_quotes Aspect_quotes Universe_quotes Obtain_quotes Examination_quotes Availability_quotes Evidence_quotes Subject_quotes Correction_quotes Improvement_quotes Discovery_quotes Better_quotes Magic_quotes Work_quotes Discipline_quotes

Herbert_Simon

Bounded Rationality

“In a world of bounded rationality there are several ways to magnify the computing capabilities of individual human beings and enhance the possibilities of their collective survival and prosperity. With the combined use of markets and administrative hierarchies, the human species has enormously increased its capabilities for specialization and division of work.”
Keywords: World_quotes Bounding_quotes Rational_quotes Way_quotes Magnify_quotes Computation_quotes Capability_quotes Individual_quotes Human_quotes Enhancement_quotes Possibility_quotes Collective_quotes Survival_quotes Prosper_quotes Combination_quotes Market_quotes Administration_quotes Hierarchy_quotes Species_quotes Enormous_quotes Increasing_quotes Specialization_quotes Division_quotes Work_quotes

Engineering and Design

“Historically and traditionally, it has been the task of the science disciplines to teach about natural things: how they are and how they work. It has been the task of engineering schools to teach about artificial things: how to make artifacts that have desired properties and how to design.”
Keywords: History_quotes Tradition_quotes Task_quotes Science_quotes Discipline_quotes Teaching_quotes Natural_quotes Work_quotes Engineering_quotes Artificial_quotes Artifact_quotes Desire_quotes Property_quotes Design_quotes School_quotes

Top Down or Bottom Up

“Alternatives are also open, in organizing the design process, as to how far development of possible subsystems will be carried before the overall coordinating design is developed in detail, or vice-versa, how far the overall design should be carried before various components, or possible components, are developed. These alternatives of design are familiar to architects. They are familiar also to composers, who must decide how far the architectonics of a musical structure will be evolved before some of the component musical themes and other elements have been invented. Computer programmers face the same choices, between working downward from executive routines to subroutines or upward from component subroutines to a coordinating executive.”
Keywords: Alternative_quotes Open_quotes Organize_quotes Design_quotes Process_quotes Far_quotes Development_quotes Subsystem_quotes Carry_quotes Coordination_quotes Detail_quotes Vice-versa_quotes Overall_quotes Component_quotes Possibility_quotes Familiar_quotes Composer_quotes Decision_quotes Architectonic_quotes Music_quotes Theme_quotes Element_quotes Invention_quotes Computer_quotes Programmer_quotes Face_quotes Choice_quotes Work_quotes Downward_quotes Executive_quotes Routine_quotes Subroutine_quotes Upward_quotes Structure_quotes Evolve_quotes

John_Steinbeck

Great Difficulty with Good Hypothesis

“There is one great difficulty with a good hypothesis. When it is completed and rounded, the corners smooth and the content cohesive and coherent, it is likely to become a thing in itself, a work of art. It is then like a finished sonnet or a painting completed. One hates to disturb it. Even if subsequent information should shoot a hole in it, one hates to tear it down because it once was beautiful and whole. One of our leading scientists, having reasoned a reef in the Pacific, was unable for a long time to reconcile the lack of a reef, indicated by soundings, with the reef his mind told him was there.”
  • Source: John Steinbeck, In John Steinbeck and Edward Flanders Ricketts Sea of Cortez: a Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941), 179-80.
Keywords: Difficulty_quotes Good_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Completion_quotes Round_quotes Corner_quotes Smooth_quotes Content_quotes Cohesion_quotes Coherence_quotes Work_quotes Art_quotes Finishing_quotes Sonnet_quotes Painting_quotes Hate_quotes Disturb_quotes Subsequent_quotes Information_quotes Shoot_quotes Hole_quotes Tear_quotes Down_quotes Beauty_quotes Whole_quotes Lead_quotes Scientist_quotes Reason_quotes Reef_quotes Pacific_quotes Unable_quotes Long_quotes Time_quotes Reconciliation_quotes Lack_quotes Indication_quotes Sound_quotes Mind_quotes Tell_quotes There_quotes

Frederick_Winslow_Taylor

Soldiering

“Under working, that is, deliberately working slowly so as to avoid doing a full day's work, 'soldiering,' as it is called in this country, 'hanging it out,' as it is called in England, 'ca canae,' as it is called in Scotland, is almost universal in industrial establishments, and prevails also to a large extent in the building trades; and the writer asserts without fear of contradiction that this constitutes the greatest evil with which the working-people of both England and America are now afflicted.”
  • Source: F.W. Taylor (1911). Principles of Scientific Management. New York and London, Harper & brothers. chap. 1.
Keywords: Work_quotes Soldiering_quotes Avoidance_quotes Lazy_quotes Universal_quotes Industrial_quotes Building_quotes Evil_quotes Deliberate_quotes Slow_quotes Full_quotes Day_quotes Call_quotes Country_quotes England_quotes Scotland_quotes Establishment_quotes Prevail_quotes Large_quotes Extent_quotes Trade_quotes Writer_quotes Assert_quotes Contradiction_quotes Constitute_quotes People_quotes America_quotes Afflict_quotes

Systematic Soldiering

“The greater part of the systematic soldiering, however, is done by the men with the deliberate object of keeping their employers ignorant of how fast work can be done. So universal is soldiering for this purpose, or under any of the ordinary systems of compensating labor, who does not devote a considerable part of his time to studying just how slowly he can work and still convince his employer that he is going at a good pace.”
  • Source: F.W. Taylor (1903) "Shop management; a paper read before the American society of mechanical engineers, " in: Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 24: 1337-1480. p. 1351.
Keywords: Productivity_quotes Soldiering_quotes Ignorance_quotes Employment_quotes Labor_quotes Deception_quotes Worker_quotes Great_quotes Part_quotes Systematic_quotes Men_quotes Deliberate_quotes Keep_quotes Employer_quotes Fast_quotes Work_quotes Done_quotes Universal_quotes Purpose_quotes Ordinary_quotes System_quotes Compensation_quotes Devote_quotes Considerable_quotes Time_quotes Study_quotes Slow_quotes Convince_quotes Go_quotes Pace_quotes Good_quotes

Workman Soldiering

“After a workman has had the price per piece of the work he is doing lowered two or three times as a result of his having worked harder and increased his output, he is likely to entirely lose sight of his employer's side of the case and to become imbued with a grim determination to have no more cuts if soldiering can prevent it.”
  • Source: F.W. Taylor (1903) "Shop management; a paper read before the American society of mechanical engineers, " in: Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 24: 1337-1480. p. 1352.
Keywords: Productivity_quotes Soldiering_quotes Ignorance_quotes Employment_quotes Labor_quotes Deception_quotes Worker_quotes Optimization_quotes Exploitation_quotes Workman_quotes Price_quotes Piece_quotes Work_quotes Lower_quotes Result_quotes Hard_quotes Increase_quotes Output_quotes Likely_quotes Entire_quotes Lose_quotes Sight_quotes Employer_quotes Side_quotes Case_quotes Become_quotes Imbued_quotes Grim_quotes Determination_quotes Cut_quotes Prevent_quotes

Kindly Interest

“...in order to have any hope of obtaining the initiative of his workmen the manager must give some special incentive to his men beyond that which is given to the average of the trade. This incentive can be given in several different ways, as, for example, the hope of rapid promotion or advancement; higher wages, either in the form of generous piece-work prices or of a premium or bonus of some kind for good and rapid work; shorter hours of labor; better surroundings and working conditions than are ordinarily given, etc., and, above all, this special incentive should be accompanied by that personal consideration for, and friendly contact with, his workmen which comes only from a genuine and kindly interest in the welfare of those under him.”
  • Source: F.W. Taylor, 1911. Principles of Scientific Management. New York and London, Harper & brothers. Chapter 1.
Keywords: Employment_quotes Scientific_Management_quotes Interest_quotes Management_quotes Incentive_quotes Compensation_quotes Promotion_quotes Bonus_quotes Labor_quotes Environment_quotes Hours_quotes Friendliness_quotes Kindness_quotes Welfare_quotes Human_Resources_quotes Science_quotes Order_quotes Hope_quotes Obtain_quotes Initiative_quotes Workman_quotes Manager_quotes Special_quotes Men_quotes Beyond_quotes Give_quotes Average_quotes Trade_quotes Different_quotes Rapid_quotes Advancement_quotes Higher_quotes Wage_quotes Generous_quotes Piece_quotes Work_quotes Price_quotes Premium_quotes Good_quotes Short_quotes Better_quotes Surrounding_quotes Condition_quotes Ordinary_quotes Incentive_quotes Accompany_quotes Personal_quotes Consideration_quotes Friendly_quotes Contact_quotes Genuine_quotes Kind_quotes

Shannon_Vallor

AI Creative Expression

“The heart of creative work is not creation, but expression... A generative AI model has nothing it needs to say.”
  • Source: From the book “The AI Mirror” by Shannon Vallor. Published 2024 by Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0197759066. Chapter 5, page 141.
Keywords: AI_quotes Artificial_quotes Intelligence_quotes Longtermism_quotes Heart_quotes Creative_quotes Work_quotes Creation_quotes Expression_quotes Generative_quotes Model_quotes Nothing_quotes Need_quotes Say_quotes

Vitruvius

Dip into Studies

“For it is not as a very great philosopher, nor as an eloquent rhetorician, nor as a grammarian trained in the highest principles of his art, that I have striven to write this work, but as an architect who has had only a dip into those studies.”
  • Source: Vitruvius, P. (1914). Ten Books on Architecture. (M. H. Morgan, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Retrieved 2018-08-23 from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20239. Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 17.
Keywords: Study_quotes Humility_quotes Architecture_quotes Philosopher_quotes Eloquent_quotes Rhetorician_quotes Grammarian_quotes Train_quotes Principle_quotes Art_quotes Strive_quotes Write_quotes Work_quotes Dip_quotes

Gerald_Weinberg

Small Teams More Efficient

“In any case, the basic rule for size and composition of programming teams would seem to be this — for the best programming at the least cost, give the best possible programmers you can find sufficient time so you need the smallest number of them. When you have to work faster, or with less experienced people, costs and uncertainties will rise. In any case, the worst way to do a programming project is to hire a horde of trainees and put them to work under pressure and without supervision — although this is the most common practice today.”
  • Source: Chapter 5. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
Keywords: Rule_quotes Size_quotes Programming_quotes Programmer_quotes Team_quotes Cost_quotes Slack_quotes Time_quotes Fast_quotes Experience_quotes People_quotes Hiring_quotes Training_quotes Pressure_quotes Supervision_quotes Management_quotes Practice_quotes Common_quotes Basic_quotes Composition_quotes Quality_quotes Small_quotes Rise_quotes Uncertainty_quotes Worse_quotes Way_quotes Project_quotes Horde_quotes Trainee_quotes Work_quotes

Correct Models

“Such models need not be correct; in fact, one does not so much ask whether or not the model is correct as whether it adequately or inadequately fulfills its purpose. When we travel to work, we unconsciously use a flat-Earth model of the terrain, as we think most people do on their ordinary journeys.”
  • Source: Weinberg, Gerald (2011-06-03). Passive Regulation: General Systems Design Principles (General Systems Thinking) (Kindle Locations 2186-2188). Weinberg & Weinberg. Kindle Edition.
Keywords: Model_quotes Correctness_quotes Adequate_quotes Inadequate_quotes Purpose_quotes Travel_quotes Earth_quotes Consciousness_quotes Work_quotes Unconscious_quotes Flat_quotes Terrain_quotes Think_quotes People_quotes Ordinary_quotes Journey_quotes

School Does Not Work

“What you learned in school doesn't work.”
Keywords: School_quotes Education_quotes Learning_quotes Work_quotes Effectiveness_quotes Ineffective_quotes

Multiple Programmer Productivity

“As a rough rule, three programmers organized into a team can do only twice the work of a single programmer of the same ability — because of time spent on coordination problems. Moreover, three groups of three programmers can do only twice the work of a single group.”
  • Source: Book Entitled: The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition). Edition: Silver anniversary. Written By: Gerald Weinberg. Published originally: 1971. Republished: 2011. Chapter: 5.
Keywords: Rule_quotes Programmer_quotes Team_quotes Work_quotes Productivity_quotes Ability_quotes Coordination_quotes Problem_quotes Rough_quotes

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

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

True Consensus on Group Goals

“To achieve true consensus on group goals, there is no better method than having the group set the goals itself... To be sure, not every programming team can be permitted to set whatever goals it happens to fancy at any moment. A team is usually constituted to accomplish some task which has probably been set down before the team was even assembled. But programming tasks are not usually specified too precisely until much later than team formation, so that unless the upper management is very overbearing, much meaningful and interesting goal setting can be done by the team members in concert. The greatest danger is the manager who has come up through the programming ranks and wants to define every bit and byte before the team even sees the problem. Nothing is more sure to dampen the team enthusiasm and make them feel that they are 'mere coders... Of course, it is best if each team can have a single clearly defined goal, but the world is seldom so simple... When a team is not fully apprised of the emphasis to be placed on each factor, the members of that team may very well be working at cross purposes.”
  • Source: Chapter 5. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
Keywords: True_quotes Achievement_quotes Consensus_quotes Group_quotes Goal_quotes Methodology_quotes Empowerment_quotes Programming_quotes Team_quotes Assignment_quotes Task_quotes Precision_quotes Later_quotes Before_quotes Management_quotes Overbearing_quotes Meaning_quotes Cooperation_quotes Danger_quotes Rank_quotes PreSpecification_quotes Requirements_quotes Problem_quotes Enthusiasm_quotes Coder_quotes Mere_Coders_quotes Clarity_quotes Singleness_quotes World_quotes Simplicity_quotes Complexity_quotes Emphasis_quotes Factor_quotes Work_quotes Cross_Purpose_quotes Assemble_quotes Interesting_quotes Concert_quotes Define_quotes Dampen_quotes Feel_quotes Member_quotes Cross_quotes Purpose_quotes

Authoritarian Team

“In the authoritarian team, to the extent that all work is organized through and guarded exclusively by the leader, holes are left when a member leaves. Only the leader has the necessary information to make the new division of labor among the remaining members. If the leader is busy or away, the loss of a member can be a disaster.”
  • Source: Chapter 5. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
Keywords: Authority_quotes Team_quotes Work_quotes Centralization_quotes Turnover_quotes Leadership_quotes Information_quotes Labor_quotes Disaster_quotes Extent_quotes Organize_quotes Guard_quotes Exclusive_quotes Hole_quotes Member_quotes Leave_quotes Necessary_quotes Division_quotes Remain_quotes Busy_quotes Away_quotes Loss_quotes

Amateur and Professional Programmers

“The amateur... is looking for a way to get the job done. If he runs into difficulty, all he wants is to surmount it — the manner of doing so is of little consequence. Not so, however, for the professional. She may well be aware of numerous ways of circumnavigating the problem at hand. She may even employ one of them for the immediate purpose of getting the job done. But her work does not stop there; it begins there. It begins because she must understand why she did not understand, in order that she may prepare herself for the programs she may someday write which will require that understanding. The amateur, then, is learning about his problem... The professional, conversely, is learning about her profession — programming — and the problem being programmed is only one incidental step in her process of development.”
  • Source: Chapter 7. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
Keywords: Amateur_quotes Professional_quotes Job_quotes Difficulty_quotes Circumnavigation_quotes Problem_quotes Work_quotes Understanding_quotes Program_quotes Programming_quotes Programmer_quotes Preparation_quotes Process_quotes Development_quotes Look_quotes Way_quotes Surmount_quotes Manner_quotes Do_quotes Little_quotes Consequence_quotes Numerous_quotes Hand_quotes Employ_quotes Immediate_quotes Purpose_quotes Stop_quotes Begin_quotes Order_quotes Write_quotes Someday_quotes Require_quotes Learning_quotes Converse_quotes Profession_quotes Incidental_quotes Step_quotes

Stephen_Wolfram

Foundational Math Problem

“Here's the foundational problem. The mathematics you need is completely unknown. We're trying to build it, but here's how it works. If you study calculus, you'll study univariant calculus, calculus of one variable. You'll study multivariant calculus, calculus where there's variables x, y, z, and so on. What we need is calculus where there are fractional number of variables, and nobody has ever figured that out. Nobody has even tried to study that. When you look at the kind of geometry that emerges from these hypergraphs and things you end up needing to know about things like calculus in 3.1 dimensions. That's simply a mathematical structure that hasn't been built. We're in the process of building it, but it is a fairly heavy lift. That's a deep, foundational piece of mathematics that has to be built...”
  • Source: Spoken by Stephen Wolfram in a video interview with Brian Keating recorded in the YouTube video ‘What is Time? Stephen Wolfram’s Groundbreaking New Theory’ published on channel ‘Dr. Brian Keating’ on 2024-12-02. Video offset 1:32:08. Online at https://youtu.be/c-RO3vM10Ok?si=i-XspeEtzqA3jPl9 retrieved 2024.
Keywords: Foundation_quotes Problem_quotes Mathematics_quotes Need_quotes Complete_quotes Unknown_quotes Try_quotes Build_quotes Work_quotes Study_quotes Calculus_quotes Univariant_quotes Multivariant_quotes Fraction_quotes Number_quotes Variable_quotes Nobody_quotes Figure_quotes Kind_quotes Geometry_quotes Emerge_quotes Hypergraph_quotes Know_quotes Dimension_quotes Structure_quotes Heavy_quotes Lift_quotes Deep_quotes Piece_quotes

Edward_Yourdon

Prototyping Analysis Design

“Everyone knows the benefits of building a prototype for an end user who is unsure of his or her requirements, but prototyping cannot eliminate the need for formal analysis and design work on large, complex projects.”
  • 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 2, section 2.4, page 30.
Keywords: Everyone_quotes Know_quotes Benefit_quotes Build_quotes Prototyping_quotes End_quotes User_quotes Requirements_quotes Eliminate_quotes Need_quotes Formal_quotes Analysis_quotes Design_quotes Work_quotes Complex_quotes Project_quotes

What to Do

“Solution: What to Do:
→ Hire the best people you can.
→ Pay special attention to proper training of your people.
→ Provide an exemplary environment in which your people can feel motivated and have fun and do good work.
→ Pay attention to effective project teams.”
  • 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 3.5, page 54.
Keywords: Do_quotes Hire_quotes Best_quotes People_quotes Provide_quotes Exemplary_quotes Environment_quotes Feel_quotes Motivation_quotes Fun_quotes Good_quotes Work_quotes Effective_quotes Project_quotes Team_quotes Solution_quotes

Shoshana_Zuboff

Advent of the Smart Machine

“Should the advent of the smart machine be taken as an invitation to relax the demands upon human comprehension and critical judgment? Does the massive diffusion of computer technology throughout our workplaces necessarily entail an equally dramatic loss of meaningful employment opportunities? Must the new electronic milieu engender a world in which individuals have lost control over their daily work lives?”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 5 (Introduction). ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Computer_quotes Comprehension_quotes Judgment_quotes Technology_quotes Workplace_quotes Meaning_quotes Purpose_quotes Employment_quotes Control_quotes Smart_quotes Machine_quotes Advent_quotes Invitation_quotes Relax_quotes Human_quotes Critical_quotes Massive_quotes Diffusion_quotes Dramatic_quotes Loss_quotes Opportunity_quotes Electronic_quotes Milieu_quotes Engender_quotes World_quotes Individual_quotes Lost_quotes Work_quotes Daily_quotes Life_quotes

World Lost or Gained

'“There is a world to be lost and a world to be gained. Choices that appear to be merely technical will redefine our lives together at work. This means more than simply contemplating the implications or consequences of a new technology. It means that a powerful new technology, such as that represented by the computer, fundamentally reorganizes the infrastructure of our material world. It eliminates former alternatives. It creates new possibilities. It necessitates fresh choices.“
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 5 (Introduction). ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: World_quotes Loss_quotes Gain_quotes Decision_quotes Choice_quotes Technology_quotes Work_quotes Employment_quotes Consequence_quotes Contemplation_quotes Power_quotes Computer_quotes Material_quotes Infrastructure_quotes Alternative_quotes Possibility_quotesEliminate_quotes Reorganize_quotes Fresh_quotes

Diminished Worker

“In diminishing the role of the worker's body in the labor process, industrial technology has also tended to diminish the importance of the worker. In creating jobs that require less human effort, industrial technology has also been used to create jobs that require less human talent.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 22. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Worker_quotes Humanity_quotes Diminish_quotes Labor_quotes Industrial_quotes Technology_quotes Importance_quotes Employment_quotes Work_quotes Job_quotes Effort_quotes Talent_quotes Role_quotes Body_quotes Process_quotes Create_quotes Require_quotes

Animality

“The close relationship between the rejection of animality and the progress of civilization is at the heart of our modern conception of work. Marx expressed this relationship when he argued that mastery of the material world was the basis upon which man humanized himself and developed culture. This in fact is the civilizing process; humanization means tempering animality with rationality, aesthetic grace, and moral choice.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 30. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Relationship_quotes Rejection_quotes Animality_quotes Civilization_quotes Modern_quotes Conception_quotes Work_quotes Material_quotes Humanity_quotes Culture_quotes Rational_quotes Reason_quotes Aesthetics_quotes Morality_quotes Choice_quotes Progress_quotes Heart_quotes Marx(topic)_quotes Express_quotes Argue_quotes Mastery_quotes World_quotes Basis_quotes Develop_quotes Temper_quotes

Skill and Effort

“These twin functions of the body -- as a source of skill and as a source of efforts -- complicated the way in which employers confronted the problems of labor discipline and the speed with which they invested in labor-saving technology, just as they complicated workers' responses to that technology.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 36. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Body_quotes Skill_quotes Effort_quotes Employment_quotes Labor_quotes Technology_quotes Worker_quotes Work_quotes Automation_quotes Twin_quotes Function_quotes Source_quotes Complicated_quotes Way_quotes Problem_quotes Confront_quotes Discipline_quotes Speed_quotes Invest_quotes Response_quotes

Divergence of Interests

“Taylor had believed that the transcendent logic of science, together with easier work and better, more fairly determined wages, could integrate the worker into the organization and inspire a zest for production. Instead, the forms of work organization that emerged with scientific management tended to amplify the divergence of interests between management and workers.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 45. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Logic_quotes Science_quotes Taylorism_quotes Work_quotes Automation_quotes Fairness_quotes Compensation_quotes Worker_quotes Organization_quotes Zest_quotes Production_quotes Amplification_quotes Divergence_quotes Interest_quotes Management_quotes Taylor(topic)_quotes Believe_quotes Transcendent_quotes Wage_quotes Integrate_quotes Inspire_quotes Form_quotes Emerge_quotes

Work Life Balance

“A machinist gained prominence when he debated Taylor in 1914 and remarked, 'we don't want to work as fast as we are able to. We want to work as fast as we think it's comfortable for us to work. We haven't come into existence for the purpose of seeing how great a task we can perform through a lifetime. We are trying to regulate our work so as to make it auxiliary to our lives.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 46. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Machinist_quotes Prominence_quotes Taylorism_quotes Fast_quotes Work_quotes Comfort_quotes Existence_quotes Life_quotes Purpose_quotes Regulation_quotes Auxiliary_quotes Balance_quotes Gain_quotes Taylor(topic)_quotes Able_quotes Think_quotes Task_quotes Perform_quotes Lifetime_quotes

Information and Automating

“To the extent that technology is used only to intensify the automaticity of work, it can reduce skill levels and dampen the urge toward more participatory and decentralized forms of management... However, this approach cannot exploit the unique power of an informating technology. In contrast, an approach to technology deployment that emphasizes its informating capacity uses technology to do far more than routinize, fragment, or eliminate jobs. It uses the new technology to increase the intellectual content of work at virtually every organizational level, as the ability to decipher explicit information and make decisions informed by that understanding becomes broadly distributed among organizational members.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 243. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Informating_quotes Information_quotes Technology_quotes Automation_quotes Skill_quotes Deskilling_quotes Participation_quotes Decentralization_quotes Management_quotes Work_quotes Intensity_quotes Exploitation_quotes Elimination_quotes Employment_quotes Deployment_quotes Job_quotes Intellectualism_quotes Organization_quotes Decision_quotes Explicit_quotes Understanding_quotes Comprehension_quotes Distributed_quotes Empowerment_quotes Extent_quotes Intensify_quotes Reduce_quotes Dampen_quotes Urge_quotes Form_quotes Approach_quotes Exploit_quotes Unique_quotes Power_quotes Informate_quotes Emphasizes_quotes Capacity_quotes Far_quotes Routine_quotes Fragment_quotes Eliminate_quotes Increase_quotes Level_quotes Ability_quotes Decipher_quotes Broad_quotes Member_quotes

Abstract Work

“As the work that people do becomes more abstract, the need for positive motivation and internal commitment becomes all the more crucial.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 291. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Work_quotes Abstraction_quotes People_quotes Motivation_quotes Commitment_quotes Do_quotes Need_quotes Positive_quotes Internal_quotes Crucial_quotes

Responsive and Responsible

“As work becomes computer mediated, it is difficult to distinguish responsibility from the work itself. Much of what now constitutes ‘work’ involves the mindfulness and intellective effort necessary for continual responsiveness at the interface. What, finally, is the difference between being responsive and being responsible?”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 296. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Work_quotes Mediation_quotes Responsibility_quotes Responsive_quotes Mindfulness_quotes Intellectualism_quotes Interface_quotes Computer_quotes Difficult_quotes Distinguish_quotes Constitute_quotes Involve_quotes Effort_quotes Continual_quotes Difference_quotes

Life at the Data Interface

“Life at the data interface invites the worker into the abstract precincts of managerial work. It provides access to a broader view of the business as well as a deepened understanding of one's tasks and their role in the wider sphere of organizational functions. When work becomes synonymous with responsiveness to data, it engenders inquiry and dialogue, thus opening the way for workers to envision new possibilities and fresh alternatives to the reigning definitions of process, product, and organization.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 301. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Life_quotes Data_quotes Interface_quotes Work_quotes Organization_quotes Function_quotes Responsive_quotes Inquiry_quotes Dialogue_quotes Possibility_quotes Alternative_quotes Definition_quotes Process_quotes Product_quotes Invite_quotes Worker_quotes Abstract_quotes Precinct_quotes Management_quotes Provide_quotes Access_quotes Broad_quotes View_quotes Business_quotes Deep_quotes Understand_quotes Task_quotes Role_quotes Sphere_quotes Wide_quotes Synonymous_quotes Engender_quotes Open_quotes Way_quotes Envision_quotes Reign_quotes

Technology Change

“To fully grasp the way in which a major new technology can change the world... it is necessary to consider both the manner in which it creates intrinsically new qualities of experience and the way in which new possibilities are engaged by the often-conflicting demands of social, political, and economic interests in order to produce a 'choice.' To concentrate only on intrinsic change and the texture of an emergent mentality is to ignore the real weight of history and the diversity of interests that pervade collective behavior. However, to narrow all discussion of technological change to the play of these interests overlooks the essential power of technology to reorder the rules of the game and thus our experience as players. Moreover, these two dimensions of technological change, the intrinsic and the contingent, need to be understood, not separately, but in relation to one another. The same innovation that abstracts work and increases its intellectual content, thus enhancing the learning of lower level employees... can also, within the context of the choices by which it is adapted, be experienced as a new source of divisiveness and control.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 389. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Technology_quotes Change_quotes World_quotes Consideration_quotes Intrinsic_quotes Quality_quotes Experience_quotes Possibility_quotes Conflict_quotes Demand_quotes Society_quotes Political_quotes Economics_quotes Interest_quotes Choice_quotes Concentration_quotes Emergence_quotes Thinking_quotes Mental_quotes History_quotes Diversity_quotes Collectivism_quotes Behavior_quotes Discussion_quotes Power_quotes Rule_quotes Game_quotes Play_quotes Contingent_quotes Understanding_quotes Relationship_quotes Innovation_quotes Abstraction_quotes Work_quotes Intellectualism_quotes Learning_quotes Employee_quotes Divisiveness_quotes Control_quotes Grasp_quotes Way_quotes Major_quotes New_quotes Manner_quotes Create_quotes Engage_quotes Texture_quotes Real_quotes Weight_quotes Pervade_quotes Narrow_quotes Overlook_quotes Reorder_quotes Player_quotes Dimension_quotes Increase_quotes Enhance_quotes Lower_quotes Level_quotes Context_quotes Adapt_quotes Source_quotes

Learning Environment

“The demands of a learning environment can reduce the psychological distance between the self and the organization because active engagement in the social processes associated with interpretation requires more extensive participation of the human personality. In a traditional approach to work organization, employees could be treated as objectively measurable bodies, and in return, they could give of their labor without giving of their selves. The human being as wage earner and the human being as subjective actor could remain separate.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 401. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Demand_quotes Learning_quotes Environment_quotes Psychology_quotes Self_quotes Organization_quotes Activity_quotes Engagement_quotes Society_quotes Process_quotes Interpretation_quotes Requirements_quotes Participation_quotes Humanity_quotes Personality_quotes Tradition_quotes Work_quotes Employee_quotes Treatment_quotes Object_quotes Measurement_quotes Labor_quotes Body_quotes Compensation_quotes Wage_quotes Subject_quotes Actor_quotes Separation_quotes Reduce_quotes Distance_quotes Associate_quotes Approach_quotes

Informating Strategy

“There are several lessons to be learned here. First, the requirements of an informating strategy support existing work-improvement efforts, such as the high commitment approach to work force management, with its emphasis on self-managing teams, participation, and decentralization.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 413. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Informating_quotes Strategy_quotes Lesson_quotes Learning_quotes Requirements_quotes Work_quotes Improvement_quotes Effort_quotes Commitment_quotes Force_quotes Management_quotes Self_quotes Participation_quotes Decentralization_quotes Human_Resources_quotes Team_quotes
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