Murphy's laws

Piranha

I found a site with lots of Murphy's laws, here are some of the laws that applys for programming and programmers. If you find or make up new laws just post them here.

Bugs will appear in one part of a working program when another 'unrelated' part is modified.

Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will find that programmers can not write in English.

A working program is one that has only unobserved bugs.

Software bugs are impossible to detect by anybody except the end user.

The number of bugs always exceeds the number of lines found in a program.

An expert is someone brought in at the last minute to share the blame.

The only thing worse than an end-user without a clue is an end-user who has a clue - usually the wrong one.

Bugs mysteriously appear when you say, "Watch this!"
corollary: If you call another programmer over to see if he knows what's wrong the bug disappears.

When designing a program to handle all possible dumb errors, nature creates a dumber user

If Murphy's laws are so true then how come I can log onto this site and submi............
[connection reset - error message 928 ]

NogDog

From many years ago when I worked on a project for the USN:

"You can make your software foolproof, but you can't make it sailor proof."

dalecosp

NogDog wrote:
From many years ago when I worked on a project for the USN:

"You can make your software foolproof, but you can't make it sailor proof."

LOL! They should know, of course.

Weedpacket

dalecosp wrote:
LOL! They should know, of course.

I wonder how many of the people who've seen that document over the years read the rest of the page to see what the day's work involved?

dalecosp

Well, it kinda shows not much has changed:

$ h
554  08:54   ls ~/scripts
555  09:54   edit ~/scripts/hw.c
556  10:45   cc -o ~/scripts/hello.exe ~/scripts/hw.c &
557  11:59   lock -p
558  13:07   ls -l ~/scripts/hell*
559  13:09   top | grep cc
560  15:18   cd scripts && ./hello.exe
561  16:49   ktrace ./hello.exe
562  16:50   sudo killall ktrace && logout
563  21:19   h

Roger_Ramjet

The backup you need will always be the backup you did not take.

Programs expand to fill the available memory and data expands to fill the available storage.

dalecosp

Roger Ramjet wrote:
The backup you need will always be the backup you did not take.

Programs expand to fill the available memory and data expands to fill the available storage.

And the available storage experiences a head crash the day after warranty expiration; assuming, of course, that a bug in the backup system means your last good dump was $n weeks ago (where $n is the number of weeks since the big push started 😃 )

Bunkermaster

Backups are useless until you've tested the restore software.
My record is showing a bank that they had around 18 months worth of useless rather expensively stored backups since the change in backup/restore software which was a big pile of bantha poodoo. Much fecal matter hit the proverbial fan that day.

NogDog

Not really a Murphy's law, but a saying I've always liked:

"Software testing is the art of trying to increase one's confidence in a piece of software by finding everything that is wrong with it."

Bunkermaster

NogDog that's actually a current misconception. Testing is about making sure that your system does what it was intended to do. You can always find errors in a system. You can even find it's doing things no one really asked for. It doesn't matter. Testing is making sure the user will do the tasks the system was designed to perform within acceptable performance, availability and security.

NogDog

Bunkermaster wrote:
NogDog that's actually a current misconception. Testing is about making sure that your system does what it was intended to do. You can always find errors in a system. You can even find it's doing things no one really asked for. It doesn't matter. Testing is making sure the user will do the tasks the system was designed to perform within acceptable performance, availability and security.

I've got about 17 years of experience working as a software test engineer. Believe me, I know what software testing is. 😉

I still like that saying. :p

Bunkermaster

It's dangerous to propagate misconceptions in an environment like this forums, people believe we're knowledgable. I for one would like to carry on the illusion 😃

Weedpacket

Sturgeon's Law always applies: 90% of anything is crap.

This is especially true for the Internet.

Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Not much of a "Murphy's Law", but it's first corollary of that is: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."

Law of Memory and Storage Requirements (practical version): Generously estimate how much you'll need, then multiply by four.
Law of Memory and Storage Requirements (theoretical version): You Always Need More

Murphy's Law is not.

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

Oh, and: All programming languages suck.

NogDog

Conway's Law:
In every organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired!

The first 90% of the project takes 90% of the time. The last 10% of the project takes the other 90%.

NogDog's law of USB connectors:
Since there is a 50/50 chance that the USB cable will be oriented correctly when you try to plug it in to your computer, there is a 90% chance that you'll need to twist it 180 degrees after the first try.

Weedpacket

NogDog wrote:
Since there is a 50/50 chance that the USB cable will be oriented correctly when you try to plug it in to your computer, there is a 90% chance that you'll need to twist it 180 degrees after the first try.

And of course you'll be familiar with the rule of narrative imperative that says that one-in-a-million chances succeed nine times out of ten.

Roger_Ramjet

Sod's Law:

Whatever can go wrong will go wrong; usually at the most inconvenient time.

Popper's Epistemology:
You can't prove a theory right but you can prove it wrong so all Laws are just our best guess yet.

dalecosp

Weedpacket wrote:
...the rule of narrative imperative....

😃

I've known of that one a long time; but never what 'twas called.

From the archives:

Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law:
        When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.

Cohen's Law:
        There is no bottom to worse.

All laws are simulations of reality.
                -- John C. Lilly

Brady's First Law of Problem Solving:
        When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more
        easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger
        have handled this?"

piersk

dalecosp wrote:
Brady's First Law of Problem Solving:
When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more
easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger
have handled this?"

Note that "Lone Ranger" can be replaced by Chuck Norris, The Hoff or Brian Boitano...

dalecosp

piersk wrote:
Note that "Lone Ranger" can be replaced by Chuck Norris, The Hoff or Brian Boitano...

Of course --- but only in Linux, and only if you're running >= 2.6 kernel version. For Windows and/or Apple it's "Steve" (Cutler for programmers and those with ethos, Ballmer for marketing and other management types, guess which for Apple), and if you use BSD you can't change the fortune datfiles without a commit bit. 😃

Weedpacket

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you think, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.