Hotel Genius

David Lorge Parnas

Software engineer.

Quotes

“…it is almost always incorrect to begin the decomposition of a system into modules on the basis of a flowchart. We propose instead that one begins with a list of difficult design decisions or design decisions which are likely to change. Each module is then designed to hide such a decision from the others.”

“I would advise students to pay more attention to the fundamental ideas rather than the latest technology. The technology will be out-of-date before they graduate. Fundamental ideas never get out of date. However, what worries me about what I just said is that some people would think of Turing machines and Goedel’s theorem as fundamentals. I think those things are fundamental but they are also nearly irrelevant. I think there are fundamental design principles, for example structured programming principles, the good ideas in “Object Oriented” programming, etc.”