A basic principle of data processing teaches the folly of trying to maintain independent files in synchonism.

Adjusting to the requirement for perfection is, I think, the most difficult part of learning to program.

We tend to blame the physical media for most of our implementation difficulties; for the media are not "ours" in the way the ideas are, and our pride colors our judgement.

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

Plan to throw one (implementation) away; you will, anyhow.

The boss must first distinguish between action information and status information. He must discipline himself not to act on problems his managers can solve, and never to act on problems when he is explicitly reviewing status.

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.