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At a recent internal Capgemini tradeshow, we had the pleasure of using some great quotes that really benefit working the way I like the best: Small agile teams where we can show and tell — make working software and prototypes very fast in close collaboration with clients.

Mads and I decided to add a few quotes of our own on the list — basically to provoke a bit internally. One of the provocations were to call us “Ruby on Rails pioneers”. The reason for that is actually that a Danish newspaper last year called us that when describing this way of working.

”Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it”

- Alan Perlis
(American computer scientist, inventor of ALGOL)

”Expansion means complexity and complexity decay”

- C. Northcote Parkinson
(British historian and author)

”Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before”

- Franz Kafka

”Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability”

- Edsger Dijkstra
(Dutch mathematician, inventor of Shortest Path First Algorithm)

” UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity”

- Dennis Ritchie
(Inventor of C and and Unix core developer)

“Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough”

- Charles Dudley Warner
(American essayist and novelist)

“The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity”

- Bill Gates
(Inventor of DOS and Windows)

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”

- Leonardo da Vinci

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated”

- Confucius

Project success is not product success

- Jeff Patton, Agile Alliance

”Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it”

- Alan Perlis
(American computer scientist, inventor of ALGOL)

“At a certain point, waterfall project development models force us to stop becoming smarter”

- Jesper Rønn-Jensen
(Capgemini Ruby on Rails pioneer)

“Enterprise? – A colossal spaceship from the 80’s flown by people with bad taste: Highly advanced, but purely fictional”

- Mads Buus Westmark
(Capgemini Ruby on Rails pioneer)

“Agile consultants: pricey, but not enterpricey”

- Mads Buus Westmark
(Capgemini Ruby on Rails pioneer)

More info:

• Justaddwater: Ruby on Rails as rapid prototyping tool (April 2006)
• Justaddwater: Selling Ruby, Rails, and Agile Project Management (February 3rd)
• Justaddwater: Danish Newspaper Interview: Capgemini on Rails (February 2007)

Feel free to add any quote you think should be added to this list.

Technorati Tags: agile, quotes, simplicity, enterprise, ruby on rails, productivity, prototyping

This entry was posted by Jesper Rønn-Jensen on Sunday, February 24th, 2008 at 21:24 (GMT-1) and is filed under Agile, Productivity, Prototyping, Ruby on Rails. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.