Building Quote by Richard E. Pattis
“When building a complex system, having crackerjack programmers (who can make any design work, even a bad one) can be a liability. The result, after lots of effort, is a working system that cannot be easily maintained or upgraded. Good -but not great- programmers would fail early, causing a realization that the system must be redesigned, and then reimplemented. The extra cost is paid once, early in the system's cycle (when it is cheap), instead of repeatedly paid late in the system's cycle (when it is more expensive).”
About This Quote
Source Book: Software Engineering Principles, 1995
Skilled programmers who can force any design to work may hide flaws, leading to costly maintenance later; early failure reveals design issues sooner.
In simple terms: Good programmers expose problems early, saving later costs.
Key Takeaway
Hire for rigor, not just talent.
Themes
software design
maintenance
risk management
Mood
cautious
analytical
Type
advice
technical
When to use this quote
- project planning
- code reviews
- architecture assessment
- team hiring
- refactoring
Key Concepts
technical debt
design robustness
early failure detection
Questions to Reflect On
- How can teams balance talent with critical design scrutiny?
- What processes catch hidden design flaws early?
A Different Perspective
If the design is fundamentally flawed, even early failures may not prevent later issues.
![“Lehman and Belady have studied the history of successive releases in a large operating system.[6] They find that the total number of modules increases linearly with release number, but that the number of modules affected increases exponentially with release number. All repairs tend to destroy the…” quote by Frederick P. Brooks Jr](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/115/frederick-p-brooks-jr-11230_history_lehman-and-belady-have-studied-the-histo_145780.jpg)
![“T]he church is not a place. It's not a building. It's not a preaching point. It's not a spiritual service provider. It's a people - the new covenant, blood-bought people of God. That's why Paul said, 'Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her' (Eph. 5:25). He didn't give himself up for a…” quote by Mark Dever](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/7a4/mark-dever-3175_blood_t-he-church-is-not-a-place-it-s-not-a-bu_3297.jpg)
