How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time.

There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity.

But I will argue that knowing complete product requirements up front is a quite rare exception, not the norm.

When a task cannot be partitioned because of sequential constraints, the application of more effort has no effect on the schedule. The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.

Originality is no excuse for ignorance.

Observe that for the programmer, as for the chef, the urgency of the patron may govern the scheduled completion of the task, but it cannot govern the actual completion. An omelette, promised in two minutes, may appear to be progressing nicely. But when it has not set in two minutes, the customer has two choices - wait or eat it raw. Software customers have had the same choices.

...when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor.