The hardest part of the software task is arriving at a complete and consistent specification, and much of the essence of building a program is in fact the debugging of the specification.

A design style is defined by a set of microdecisions. A clear style reflects a consistent set. A clear style may not be a good style; a muddled one never is.

The management question, therefore, is not whether to build a pilot system and throw it away. You will do that. Hence plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow.

The fundamental problem with program maintenance is that fixing a defect has a substantial (20-50 percent) chance of introducing another. So the whole process is two steps forward and one step back.

The first step toward the management of disease was replacement of demon theories and humours theories by the germ theory. That very step, the beginning of hope, in itself dashed all hopes of magical solutions. It told workers that progress would be made stepwise, at great effort, and that a persistent, unremitting care would have to be paid to a discipline of cleanliness. So it is with software engineering today.

I have never seen an experienced programmer who routinely made detailed flow charts before beginning to write programs.

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.