Murphy's laws of Information Technology

MURPHY'S LAWS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
The original Murphy's Law states that "If there are two or more ways
to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe,
then someone will do it." The law's author is Edward A. Murphy, Jr.,
a U.S. Air Force engineer. Murphy was involved in a rocket-sled
experiment in 1947 where all 16 accelerator instruments were
installed incorrectly, resulting in his observation.

Murphy's Law is commonly misstated as "Anything that can go wrong,
will." This quote is actually Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives and
was invented by science-fiction writer Larry Niven.

Extrapolating from the original, we arrive at Murphy's Laws of
Information Technology, a set of principles that may seem to be jokes
but which events sometimes prove to be fundamental truths.

Here are a few examples of Murphy's Laws that relate to hardware:

*Law of Inconvenient Malfunction: A device will fail at the least
opportune possible moment.
*First Law of Selective Gravitation: When an object is dropped, it
will fall in such a way as to cause the greatest possible damage to
itself and/or other objects on which it lands.
*Law of Expectation: Consumer expectations always outpace advances in
hardware technology.

Here are two (greatly simplified) examples of Murphy's Laws that
relate to programming:

*Law of Debugging: The difficulty of debugging software is directly
proportional to the number of people who will ultimately use it.
*Law of Available Space: If there are n bytes in a crucial software
program, the available space for its convenient storage or loading is
equal to n-1 bytes.

For more examples of Murphy's Laws for programming and hardware,
including hyperlinks, visit our complete definition at WhatIs.com:
http://go.techtarget.com/r/407063/480889

RELATED CONTENT:

ITToolbox has more Murphy's Laws.
http://go.techtarget.com/r/407064/480889

The NYTimes has an article about 'Murphy's Law and Business Trips.'
(archive access required)
http://go.techtarget.com/r/407065/480889

Science journalist Edward Tenner examines Murphy's Law in his book,
"Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended
Consequences."
http://go.techtarget.com/r/407066/480889