Quotes by Ward Cunningham - Page 1 | QuoteForever

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What's the simplest thing that could possibly work?
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
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What is simplicity? Simplicity is the shortest path to a solution.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Path
Simplicity
Solutions
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Why have a locked wiki when you can instead just post static Web pages?
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Pages
Posts
Static
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When a manager asks for hard data, that's usually just his way of saying no.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Data
Saying No
Way
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The shortest path to exceeding expectations doesn't generally pass through meeting expectations.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Exceeding Expectations
Expectations
Path
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Global collaboration is something that Wiki mastered in a small way and here we can master it in a big way.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Bigs
Collaboration
Way
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The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question, it's to post the wrong answer.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Computer
Way
Wrong Answers
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I don't claim to be a methodologist, but I act like one only because I do methodology to protect myself from crazy methodologists.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Claims
Crazy
Methodology
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There's been an awful lot of discussion about what is or isn't simple, and people have gotten a pretty sophisticated notion of simplicity, but I'm not sure it has helped.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
People
Simple
Simplicity
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A wiki works best where you're trying to answer a question that you can't easily pose, where there's not a natural structure that's known in advance to what you need to know.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Answers
Needs
Trying
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Each routine you read turns out to be pretty much what you expected. You can call it beautiful code when the code also makes it look like the language was made for the problem.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Beautiful
Looks
Routine
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Over and over, people try to design systems that make tomorrow's work easy. But when tomorrow comes it turns out they didn't quite understand tomorrow's work, and they actually made it harder.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Design
People
Trying
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When I was at Tek, I was frustrated that computer hardware was being improved faster than computer software. I wanted to invent some software that was completely different, that would grow and change as it was used. That's how wiki came about.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Computer
Different
Frustrated
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When you get in situations where you cannot afford to make a mistake, it's very hard to do the right thing. So if you're trying to do the right thing, the right thing might be to eliminate the cost of making a mistake rather than try to guess what's right.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Cost
Mistake
Trying
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I can't tell you how much time is spent worrying about decisions that don't matter. To just be able to make a decision and see what happens is tremendously empowering, but that means you have to set up the situation such that when something does go wrong, you can fix it.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Empowering
Mean
Worry
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And then there are difficulties. Computers are famous for difficulties. A difficulty is just a blockage from progress. You have to try a lot of things. When you finally find what works, it doesn't tell you a thing. It won't be the same tomorrow. Getting the computer to work is so often dealing with difficulties.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Progress
Tomorrow
Trying
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Shipping first time code is like going into debt. A little debt speeds development so long as it is paid back promptly with a rewrite. The danger occurs when the debt is not repaid. Every minute spent on not-quite-right code counts as interest on that debt. Entire engineering organizations can be brought to a standstill under the debt load of an unconsolidated implementation, object-oriented or otherwise.
Ward Cunningham / Computer Programmer
Engineering
Long
Organization
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