Clay Shirky Quotes

Building technical systems involves a lot of hard work and specialized knowledge: languages and protocols, coding and debugging, testing and refactoring.

You have to develop your whole game to completion.

I could never understand how to build a computer, but the best I could hope for is to understand the people that do.

Technology always takes longer [to develop] than you think.

I don't think I've ever worked on anything that wasn't way bigger than we expected. That's all the way back to working on fighting games at Paradox. Everything seems to balloon when more and more people get involved.

Complexity control is the central problem of writing software in the real world

One of the headaches of high-tech test programmes is having to debug the test arrangements before you can start debugging the things you're trying to test.

But typically for a project like the Mac, the size we had was pretty good. And it has different stages. The team grows as you have to write manuals and do testing... though the Mac had no formal testing.

The process of software development doesn't feel any better than it did a generation ago.

In the organization of any major sporting event or the planning of a building, long-term thinking is key.

Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.

At the end of the day, though, there are a huge number of considerations that our management team go through before accepting any project - checking out the license is just one of them.

Macintosh felt like a system. As I learned more, I felt like I was able to guess how new things would work. I felt like the bugs in my programs were more my bugs and not things I misunderstood.

I work on OpenBSD fulltime, as the project leader. I set some directions, increase communication between the developers, and try to be involved in nearly every aspect of the base system.

I have this famous joke that I use: Why was God able to create Heaven and Earth in seven days and seven nights? Because he didn't have installed customers and legacy technology to worry about.

Running the test suite like this allows us to catch problems when they are just introduced.

I should have considered it wrong to have finished the Frieze before the room for its accommodation and the funds for its completion were available.

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

If you know how to make software, then you can create big things.

My background was computer science and business school, so eventually I worked my way up where I was running product groups - development, testing, marketing, user education.

I designed and developed an unbelievable number of applications early in my life.

Everybody in the real world will agree - the moment a project is behind deadline, quality assurance tends to go out the window.

Your goal is to achieve the best results by following their wishes. If they want you to build a house upside down standing on its chimney, it's up to you to do it.

Most of the work performed by a development engineer results in failure.

Product management really is the fusion between technology, what engineers do - and the business side.