The Blog of Harald

“Failure Is Always an Option”:http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/29/opinion/29PETR.html?ex=1377489600&en=480627d339458d74&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND:

bq. But engineers do know that nothing is perfect, including themselves. As careful and extensive as their calculations might be, engineers know that they can err — and that things can behave differently out of the laboratory.

bq. If engineers are pessimists, managers are optimists about technology. Successful, albeit flawed missions indicated to them not a weak but a robust machine.

The constant struggle between engineering and management, in a nutshell. We see it in the software world, too, where marketing schedules and “first to market” pressures clash with our desire to create well-designed, well-coded, defect-free software.

It’s a healthy struggle. “Perfect is the enemy of good”…