- Murphy’s Laws and Other Observations
Murphy\'s Laws
² If anything can go wrong, it will.
² If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the first one to go wrong.
² If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
² If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
² Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
² If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
² Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
² Mother nature is a bitch.
Addition to Murphy\'s Laws
² In nature, nothing is ever right. Therefore, if everything is going right ... something is wrong.
Forsyth\'s Second Corollary to Murphy\'s Laws
² Just when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, the roof caves in.
O\'Toole\'s Commentary on Murphy\'s Laws
² Murphy was an optimist.
Atwoods Corollary
² No books are lost by lending except those you particularly wanted to keep.
Brook\'s Law
² If at first you don\'t succeed, transform your data set!
² Adding manpower to a late software makes it later.
Cheop\'s Law
² Nothing ever gets build on schedule or within budget.
Corollary to Johnson\'s Third Law
² All of your friends either missed it, lost it or threw it out.
Featherkile\'s Rule
² Whatever you did, that\'s what you planned.
Finagle\'s Fourth Law
² Once a job is fooled up, anything done to improve it will only make it worse.
Flap\'s Law
² Any inanimate object, regardless of its position, configuration or purpose, may be expected to perform at any time in a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are either entirely obscure or else completely mysterious.
Gilb\'s Laws of Unreliability
² Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.
² Any system that depends upon human reliability is unreliable.
² Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
² Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done.
Ginsberg\'s Theorems
² You can\'t win.
² You can\'t break even.
² You can\'t even quit the game.
Golub\'s Laws of Computerdom
² Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid embarrassment of estimating the corresponding costs.
² A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; a carefully planned project takes only twice as long.
² The effort required to correct course increases geometrically with time.
² Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress.
Gummidge\'s Law
² The amount of expertise varies in inverse ratio to the number of statements understood by the general public.
Gumperson\'s Law
² The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to its desirability.
Harvard\'s Law, as Applied to Computers
² Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity and other variables, the computer will do as it damn well pleases.
Harper\'s Magazine Law
² You never find the article until you replace it.
Horner\'s Five Thumb Postulate
² Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
Jenkinson\'s Law
² It won\'t work.
Johnson\'s Third Law
² If you miss one issue of any magazine, it will be the issue that contains the article, story or installment you were most anxious to read.
Lubarsky\'s Law of Cybernetic Entomology
² There\'s always one more bug.
Pudder\'s Laws
² Anything that begins well ends badly.
² Anything that begins badly ends worse.
Rule of Accuracy
² When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer.
Sattinger\'s Law
² It works better if you plug it in.
Stockmayer\'s Theorem
² If it looks easy, it\'s tough. If it looks tough, it\'s damn near impossible.
Troutman\'s Postulate
² Profanity is the one language understood by all programmers.
² Not until a program has been in production for six months will the most harmful error be discovered.
² Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in improper order will be.
² Interchangeable tapes won\'t.
² If the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an ingenious idiot will discover a method to get bad data past it.
² If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will malfunction.
Weiler\'s Law
² Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn\'t have to do it himself.
Weinberg\'s Second Law
² If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
Westheimer\'s Rule
² To estimate the time it takes to do a task: estimate the time you think it should take, multiply by two and change the unit of measure to the next highest unit. Thus, we allocate two days for a one hour task.
Zymurg\'s Seventh Exception to Murphy\'s Law
² When it rains, it pours.
