2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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optimism
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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n. What a programmer is full of after fixing the last bug and before
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discovering the next last bug. Fred Brooks's book The Mythical Man-Month
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(See Brooks's Law ) contains the following paragraph that describes this
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extremely well: All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery
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especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers.
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Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who
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habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are
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young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But
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however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: This time
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it will surely run, or I just found the last bug.. See also Lubarsky's Law
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of Cybernetic Entomology.
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