16 lines
2.7 KiB
HTML
16 lines
2.7 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>optimism</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../O.html" title="O"/><link rel="previous" href="optical-grep.html" title="optical grep"/><link rel="next" href="Oracle--the.html" title="Oracle, the"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">optimism</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="optical-grep.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">O</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="Oracle--the.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="optimism"/><dt xmlns="" id="optimism"><b>optimism</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> What a programmer is full of after fixing the last bug and before
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discovering the <span class="emphasis"><em>next</em></span> last bug. Fred Brooks's book
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<i class="citetitle">The Mythical Man-Month</i> (See <i class="citetitle">Brooks's
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Law</i>) contains the following paragraph that describes this
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extremely well:</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><p>
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All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially
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attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the
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hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus
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on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers
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are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection
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process works, the result is indisputable: “<span class="quote">This time it will surely
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run,</span>” or “<span class="quote">I just found the last bug.</span>”.
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</p></blockquote></div><p>See also
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<a href="../L/Lubarskys-Law-of-Cybernetic-Entomology.html"><i class="glossterm">Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology</i></a>.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="optical-grep.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../O.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="Oracle--the.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">optical grep </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Oracle, the</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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