Laws about software:

  1. You can never tell which way the program went by looking at the coding.
  2. Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
  3. Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
  4. Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.
  5. If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
  6. A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.
  7. A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection.
  8. To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
  9. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.