Common wisdom makes one suspect that when the going gets tough, the though gets going. Here are four humbling quotes by Douglas Adams. They may be used to advocate for formal methods in software specification. But since their author has never shown interest in this topic, it may be more humble to simply take them as truisms for any kind of designing enterprise.
See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair.
The big corporations are suddenly taking notice of the web, and their reactions have been slow. Even the computer industry failed to see the importance of the Internet, but that's not saying much. Let's face it, the computer industry failed to see that the century would end.
