Complexity manifests itself in three general ways… Change amplification: The first symptom of complexity is that a seemingly simple change requires code modifications in many different places…Cognitive load: The second symptom of complexity is cognitive load, which refers to how much a developer needs to know in order to complete a task…Unknown unknowns: The third symptom of complexity is that it is not obvious which pieces of code must be modified to complete a task, or what information a developer must have to carry out the task successfully.

— John Ousterhout, A Philosophy of Software Design

The Romantic philosophers were not interested in taking the universe apart like a machine, in analyzing it into its smallest atoms. No, they wanted to contemplate, understand, interpret, feel and see through the world to its hidden meaning, like you do with a poem or painting.

— Bo Dalhbom and Lars Mathiassen, Struggling with Quality, The Philosophy of Developing Computer Systems

The point of calling attention to progress is not self-congratulation but identifying the causes so we can do more of what works. And since we know that something has worked, it’s unnecessary to keep depicting the developing world as a basket case to shake people out of their apathy—with the danger that they will think that additional support would just be throwing money down a rat hole.

— Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now

…even as a relatively large organization, we were more secure in the cloud than in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data centers…

— Stephen Orban, Ahead in the Cloud

Perhaps it is this specter that most haunts working men and women: the planned obsolescence of people that is of a piece with the planned obsolescence of the things they make. Or sell. It is perhaps this fear of no longer being needed in a world of needless things that most clearly spells out the unnaturalness, the surreality of much that is called work today.

— Studs Terkel, Working