DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

I’m jealous of Metcalf and Ohm and Boyle; they all have Laws. Occasionally I wonder what my law would be… something I’d be remembered for long after I’m gone.

Today I thought of a potential candidate. It comes from years of software development, throughout which I have frequently been faced with incredibly detailed, complex, sometimes self-contradictory functional specs that have to be boiled down, reduced to code and data storage, and put online right now. Here’s the law:

If it takes three days to explain, it will take three months to build.

Here’s a sample application of the law: If you want it done by next week, tell me about it in simple terms. You have ten seconds.

I don’t get too many of those 10-second requests, except for the ones that go, “You know that thing you built last week? Turn it off. I changed my mind.”