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Front PageMurphy's Laws and Other Observations
Murphy's Laws
1. 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 to go wrong.3. If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
4. If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go
wrong and circumvent these, then a fifth way, totally unprepared for, will
promptly develop.5. Left to themselves things tend to go from bad to worse.
6. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
7. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
8. Mother Nature is a bitch.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Laws
Murphy was an optimist.
Forsyth's Second Corollary to Murphy's Laws
Just when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, The roof caves in.
Forsyth's Alternative Corollary to Murphy's Laws
Just when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, someone turns it off.
Weiler's Law
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
The Laws of Computer Programming
1. Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
2. Any given program costs more and takes longer each time it is run.
3. If a program is useful it will have to be changed.
4. If a program is useless it will have to be documented.5. Any given program will expand to fill all the available memory.
6. The value of any program is inversely proportional to the weight
of it's output.7. Program complexity will grow until it exceeds the capability of the
programmer who must maintain it.
Pierce's Law
In any computer system the machine will always misinterpret, misconstrue,
misprint, or not evaluate any maths or subroutines or fail to print any output
on, at least, the first run through.
Corallary to Pierce's Law
When a computer accepts a program without error on the first run, the program
will not yield the required output.
Addition to Murphy's Laws
In Nature nothing is ever right, therefore if everything is going right...
something is wrong.
Osborn's Law
Variables won't, constants aren't.
Lubarsky's Laws of Cybernetic Entomology
There is always one more bug.
Troutman's Postulate
1. Profanity is the one language understood by all programmers.
2. Not until a program has been in use for six months will the most harmful
error be discovered.3. Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in improper order, will be.
4. Interchangeable tapes wont't.
5. If the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an ingenius
idiot will discover a method to get bad data past it.6. If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will
malfunction.Weinberg's Second Law
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs then the first
woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
Gumperson's Law
The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to it's desirability.
Sattinger's Law
It works better if you plug it in.
Jenkinson's Law
It won't work.
Horner's Five Thumb Posulate
Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
Cheop's Law
Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
Rule of Accuracy
When working towards the solution of a problem, it always helps if you
already know the answer.
Pudder's Laws
1. Anything that begins well, ends badly.
2. Anything that begins badly, ends worse.
Westheimer's Rule
To estimate the time it would take to do a task: Estimate the time you
think it would 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.
Stockmayer's Theorem
If it looks easy it's tough. If it looks tough, it's damn near impossible.
Brooke's Law
Adding manpower to late software makes it later.
Finagle's Fourth Law
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it will only make it worse.
FeatherKile's RuleWhatever you did, that's what you planned all along.
Flap's LawAny inaminate object, regardless of it's 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.
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