Murphy's laws of computers

Computer programming

• Any given program, when running, is obsolete.

• Any given program costs more and takes longer.

• If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.

• If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.

• Any program will expand to fill available memory.

• The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output.

• Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capabilities of the programmer who must maintain it.

• Any non-trivial program contains at least one bug.

• Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.

• Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

• It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.

• FEATURE n. A surprising property of a computer program. A bug can be changed to a feature by documenting it.

• At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer, you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer.

• Design a software that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.

• If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and none dare criticize it.

• Lubarsky's Law: There's always one more bug.

• Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

• Finagle's Fourth Law: Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.

• Peer's Law: The solution to the problem changes the problem.

• Brooke's Law: Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.

• Weinberg's Second Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

• Woltman's Law: Never program and drink beer at the same time.

• Mosher's Law of Software Engineering: Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd be out of a job.

Computers in general

• I really hate this damned machine, I wish that they would sell it. It never does quite what I want... But only what I tell it.

• One reason why computers can do more work than people is that they never have to stop and answer the phone.

• How many hardware engineers does it take to change a light bulb? None: "We'll fix it in software."

• To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.

• Micro Credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.