The hardest single part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build the most important function that software builders do for their clients is the iterative extraction and refinement of the product requirements. For the truth is, the clients do not know what they want. They usually do not know what questions must be answered, and they have almost never thought of the problem in the detail that must be specified.

System debugging has always been a graveyard-shift occupation, like astronomy.

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

Software work is the most complex that humanity has ever undertaken.

Mediocre design provably wastes the world's resources, corrupts the environment, affects international competitiveness. Design is important.

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

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