“The management question, therefore, is not whether to build a pilot system and throw it away. You will do that. [… ] Hence plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow.”

—  Fred Brooks

Page 116 (italics in source).
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (1975, 1995)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The management question, therefore, is not whether to build a pilot system and throw it away. You will do that. [… ] He…" by Fred Brooks?
Fred Brooks photo
Fred Brooks 20
American computer scientist 1931

Related quotes

John Clare photo

“Throw not my words away, as many do;
They're gold in value, though they're cheap to you.”

John Clare (1793–1864) English poet

"The Cross Roads; or, The Haymaker's Story"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript

Marcus Aurelius photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight to avoid this?”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Variant: Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?
Source: Either/Or, Part I

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. photo
Mark Twain photo

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but the attribution cannot be verified. The quote should not be regarded as authentic. — Twainquotes http://www.twainquotes.com/Discovery.html
Actually from the 1990 book P. S. I Love You' https://books.google.com/books?id=5OORXU6rlGIC&q=bowlines#v=onepage&q=bowlines&f=false' by H. Jackson Brown.
Misattributed

George Gissing photo

“What are we doing all our lives but purchasing, or trying to purchase, time? And most of us, having grasped it with one hand, throw it away with the other.”

Winter, § 24, p. 287; in Conducting Effective Faculty Meetings (2008) by Sue Ellen Brandenburg, p. 12 this appears paraphrased in the form: "Time is money says the proverb, but turn it around and you get a precious truth. Money is time."
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903)
Context: Time is money — says the vulgarest saw known to any age or people. Turn it round about, and you get a precious truth —money is time. I think of it on these dark, mist-blinded mornings, as I come down to find a glorious fire crackling and leaping in my study. Suppose I were so poor that I could not afford that heartsome blaze, how different the whole day would be! Have I not lost many and many a day of my life for lack of the material comfort which was necessary to put my mind in tune? Money is time. With money I buy for cheerful use the hours which otherwise would not in any sense be mine; nay, which would make me their miserable bondsman. Money is time, and, heaven be thanked, there needs so little of it for this sort of purchase. He who has overmuch is wont to be as badly off in regard to the true use of money, as he who has not enough. What are we doing all our lives but purchasing, or trying to purchase, time? And most of us, having grasped it with one hand, throw it away with the other.

John P. Kotter photo

Related topics