MURPHY'S LAWS AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS
                                       
Murphy's Laws

    1. If anything can go wrong, it will.
    2. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one
       that will cause the most damage will be the first one to go wrong.
    3. If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
    4. If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which
       something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way,
       unprepared for, will promptly develop.
    5. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
    6. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously
       overlooked something.
    7. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
    8. Mother nature is a bitch.
       
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Laws

   Murphy was an optimist.
   
Ginsberg's Theorems

    1. You can't win.
    2. You can't break even.
    3. You can't even quit the game.
       
Forsyth's Second Corollary to Murphy's Laws

   Just when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, the roof caves
   in.
   
Weiler's Law

   Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
   
The Laws of Computer Programming

    1. Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
    2. Any given program costs more and takes longer each time it is run.
    3. If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
    4. If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
    5. Any given program will expand to fill all the available memory.
    6. The value of a program is inversely proportional to the weight of
       its output.
    7. Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the
       programmer who must maintain it.
       
Pierce's Law

   In any computer system, the machine will always misinterpret,
   misconstrue, misprint, or not evaluate any math or subroutines or fail
   to print any output on at least the first run through.
   
Corollary to Pierce's Law

   When a compiler accepts a program without error on the first run, the
   program will not yield the desired output.
   
Addition to Murphy's Laws

   In nature, nothing is ever right. Therefore, if everything is going
   right ... something is wrong.
   
Brook's Law

   If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set!
   
Grosch's Law

   Computing power increases as the square of the cost.
   
Golub's Laws of Computerdom

    1. Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid embarrassment of
       estimating the corresponding costs.
    2. A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete
       than expected; a carefully planned project takes only twice as
       long.
    3. The effort required to correct course increases geometrically with
       time.
    4. Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so
       vividly manifests their lack of progress.
       
Osborn's Law

   Variables won't; constants aren't.
   
Gilb's Laws of Unreliability

    1. Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.
    2. Any system that depends upon human reliability is unreliable.
    3. Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to
       detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
    4. Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the
       probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some
       useful work done.
       
Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology

   There's always one more bug.
   
Troutman's Postulate

    1. Profanity is the one language understood by all programmers.
    2. Not until a program has been in production for six months will the
       most harmful error be discovered.
    3. Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in improper
       order will be.
    4. Interchangeable tapes won't.
    5. If the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an
       ingenious idiot will discover a method to get bad data past it.
    6. If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems
       will malfunction.
       
Weinberg's Second Law

   If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then
   the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
   
Gumperson's Law

   The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to its
   desirability.
   
Gummidge's Law

   The amount of expertise varies in inverse ratio to the number of
   statements understood by the general public.
   
Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving System Dynamics

   Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a
   larger can (old worms never die, they just worm their way into larger
   cans).
   
Harvard's Law, as Applied to Computers

   Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure,
   temperature, volume, humidity and other variables, the computer will
   do as it damn well pleases.
   
Sattinger's Law

   It works better if you plug it in.
   
Jenkinson's Law

   It won't work.
   
Horner's Five Thumb Postulate

   Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
   
Cheop's Law

   Nothing ever gets build on schedule or within budget.
   
Rule of Accuracy

   When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you
   know the answer.
   
Zymurg's Seventh Exception to Murphy's Law

   When it rains, it pours.
   
Pudder's Laws

    1. Anything that begins well ends badly.
    2. Anything that begins badly ends worse.
       
Westheimer's Rule

   To estimate the time it takes to do a task: estimate the time you
   think it should take, multiply by two and change the unit of measure
   to the next highest unit. Thus, we allocate two days for a one hour
   task.
   
Stockmayer's Theorem

   If it looks easy, it's tough. If it looks tough, it's damn near
   impossible.
   
Atwoods Corollary

   No books are lost by lending except those you particularly wanted to
   keep.
   
Johnson's Third Law

   If you miss one issue of any magazine, it will be the issue that
   contains the article, story or installment you were most anxious to
   read.
   
Corollary to Johnson's Third Law

   All of your friends either missed it, lost it or threw it out.
   
Harper's Magazine Law

   You never find the article until you replace it.
   
Brooke's Law

   Adding manpower to a late software makes it later.
   
Finagle's Fourth Law

   Once a job is fooled up, anything done to improve it will only make it
   worse.
   
Featherkile's Rule

   Whatever you did, that's what you planned.
   
Flap's Law

   Any inanimate object, regardless of its position, configuration or
   purpose, may be expected to perform at any time in a totally
   unexpected manner for reasons that are either entirely obscure or else
   completely mysterious.
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    Burkhard Kirste, 1993/07/17.