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Fisher's Fundamental Theorem states—in terms appropriate to the present context—that the better adapted a system is to a particular environment, the less adaptable it is to new environments.
Asking for efficiency and adaptability in the same program is like asking for a beautiful and modest wife or a handsome and humble husband. Although beauty and humility have been known to occur in the same person, we'll probably have to settle for one or the other. At least that's better than neither.
It may very well be that, as with schedules for programming, what the user wants is not a small mean time to execute his program but a small standard deviation, so he can plan his work reasonably.
What we need at the beginning are ideas as to what general directions to take, not detailed logistic plans for the journey.
We shall see how the individual lends his individuality to his program and how programming lends shape to the programmer herself.
(Someone should definitely study the depressing effect that the all-too-common half partitions have on programmer productivity. They manage to cut off all useful communication while permitting all disturbing sound and movement to penetrate.)
When a new programmer enters the milieu, his attitudes may be shaped by the reactions of the others already there. If he goes to somebody for advice and he is ridiculed for the stupidity of his errors, he is less likely to seek assistance the next time. If, however, someone comes to him and asks for help in looking over a program, he is flattered by the implied compliment to his ability and may not feel so threatened when he has to seek advice.
Have you ever blamed other people for errors in "your" program? Have you ever blamed inanimate objects, such as keypunches or magnetic tapes? How many times were you right in blaming these people or things?
One of the paradoxes of leadership is simply this: only the leader who is ready to step down has a real chance of success.
Because the leader has to go in against upper management. (Every leader has a leader to please. Pleasing the leader is not equated with good code.)
the ideal team would be chosen as much for interpersonal skills as programming skills,
The success of a team member is not only measured relative to other members of his team, but also as part of his team which is measured relative to other teams.
As a project moves forward, people learn things that make them less content with limited responsibilities or—let us call a spade a spade—are simply bored with duties which they feel are beneath their capabilities.
No, if a manager wants to run a stable project, he would do well to follow this simple maxim: If a programmer is indispensable, get rid of him as quickly as possible.
It is a well-known psychological principle that in order to maximize the rate of learning, the subject must be fed back information on how well or poorly he is doing. What is perhaps not so well known is that people who feel that their performance is being judged but who have no adequate information on how well they are doing will test the system by trying certain variations.
