Quotes from Gerald M. Weinberg

PREFACE PROBLEM: Nobody reads prefaces.SOLUTION: Call the preface Chapter 1.NEW PROBLEM CREATED BY SOLUTION: Chapter 1 is boring.RESOLUTION: Throw away Chapter 1 and call Chapter 2 Chapter 1.

What you don't know may not hurt you, but what you don't remember always does.

PREFACE PROBLEM: Nobody reads prefaces. SOLUTION: Call the preface Chapter 1. NEW PROBLEM CREATED BY SOLUTION: Chapter 1 is boring. RESOLUTION: Throw away Chapter 1 and call Chapter 2 Chapter 1.

People don't become leaders because they never fail. They become leaders because of the way they respond to failure.

The best computer programmers never write a new program when they can use an old one for a new job.

If you are a leader, the people are your work.

Once you eliminate your number one problem, number two gets a promotion.

Testing gathers information about a product; it does not fix things it finds that are wrong.

If you don't have questions about a product's risks, then there's no reason to test. If you have at least one such question, then ask: Will these tests cost more to execute than their answers will be worth?

One of the hardest choices for technical stars who become leaders is losing touch with the latest in technology.

There are many technical workers who enjoy wandering so much that, like Alice in Wonderland, they don't much care where they go, so long as they get somewhere.

In the seed model, Leadership is the process of creating an environment in which people become empowered.

No matter how strange it may look, most people are actually trying to be helpful.* That

Good testing involves balancing the need to mitigate risk against the risk of trying to gather too much information.

you don't have to be a boss to be a leader

problem-solving leaders have one thing in common: a faith that there's always a better way

Unless and until all members of a team have a common understanding of the problem, attempts to solve the problem are just so much wasted energy.

Why is it that we reward programmers who work all night to remove the errors they put into their programs, or managers who make drastic organizational changes to resolve the crises their poor management has created? Why not reward the programmers who design so well that they don't have dramatic errors, and managers whose organizations stay out of crisis mode? Organizing

If you cannot think of three ways of abusing a tool, you do not understand how to use it. Faithful

Linear models tend to define relationships in terms of roles rather than people: the boss rather than the person actually exerting influence. The organic model tends to define relationships in terms of one unique person to another unique person.

The name of a thing is not the thing.

One of my clients told me the story of the optimist and the pessimist who were arguing about philosophy. The optimist declares,"This is the best of all possible worlds." The pessimist sighs and says, "You're right.

It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so. - Will Rogers The

Influence or affluence; take your choice.