- Engineering Complexity
- Birth of Murphy for Java
- People = Problems
- Education Through Pain Management
- The Twenty-Cent Solution
- Fraternal Clones
- "We Lost the Napkin"
- The Devil in Blue Jeans
- Jack and the Beanstalk
- The Slashdot Effect
- The Funhouse Microphone
- That "New Car" Smell
- If I Can See It, It Must Be Wrong
- The Ugly American
- Murphy's Law
- Use Egg Cartons
- Conclusion
Conclusion
A successful software development project depends on your ability to understand the benefits and risks. Java reduces some of the risks compared to C++, but Java also introduces new risks, and there are many other risks involved with development in general. Learn as much as you can about these risks, and plan on the risks becoming full-blown problems. If we plan for the certainty of failure, we are better prepared and more likely to eventually succeed.
Law: The odds that the buttered side of a piece of toast will fall butter side down are directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.
The law above is not about the odds of the buttered side hitting the carpet. Properly looked at, the law translated becomes this:
Translation: If you like buttered toast, purchase an easily cleaned carpet. No matter what the odds are, you are eventually going to drop that toast butter side down.
Take the same attitude toward software development and plan to recover or reduce the possibility of failure. Remember that odds are not a measure of the possibility of failure. Odds of less than 100% success can fail at any time. Be prepared for the worst.