Vorbe de duh din cartea "The Mythical Man-Month"


Good cooking takes time. If you are made to wait, it is to serve you better, and to please you. 

More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time
than for all other causes combined. Why is this cause of disaster
so common?

First, our techniques of estimating are poorly developed. More
seriously, they reflect an unvoiced assumption which is quite untrue,
i.e., that all will go well.

Second, our estimating techniques fallaciously confuse effort
with progress, hiding the assumption that men and months are
interchangeable.

Third, because we are uncertain of our estimates, software
managers often lack the courteous stubbornness of Antoine's chef.

Fourth, schedule progress is poorly monitored. Techniques
proven and routine in other engineering disciplines are considered
radical innovations in software engineering.

Fifth, when schedule slippage is recognized, the natural (and
traditional) response is to add manpower. Like dousing a fire with
gasoline, this makes matters worse, much worse. More fire requires
more gasoline, and thus begins a regenerative cycle which
ends in disaster.