"As Eads, Flad and Pfeiffer knew, the essence of sound engineering lay in clearly stating the assumptions upon which calculations are based so that they may be checked at all times for lapses in logic and other errors. It is thus imperative that engineering premises be set down clearly, and that the calculations that follow be systematically and unambiguously presented, so that they may be checked by another engineer with perhaps a different perspective on the problem."
- Henry Petroski
"Engineers of Dreams", page 44,
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1995.

I keep coming back to this quote because it is emblematic for me of what is wrong with software development. Recently read The Myth of External Program Documentation by B. Scott Andersen