Modern Proverbs Appeal

[Erik Hoover]

Forgive me if this engineering proverb has been dealt with.

Variations of
"Faster, cheaper, better: you can have two, but not all three" Or
"Faster, cheaper, better: pick two"
are common in my experience among engineers.

This is referred to as an old joke in September 1997, according to
Google's Usenet archive:

Thread entitled: "Is amateur radio dying? Of course not."

[link = http://preview.tinyurl.com/2jv4xa]


On Jun 1, 2007, at 3:35 PM, Landau, James wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Landau, James" <James.Landau at NGC.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Modern Proverbs Appeal
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> "Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems that Never Happened"
> This is the title of an MIT paper available at URL
>
>
> http://web.mit.edu/nelsonr/www/CMR_Getting_Quality_v1.0.html
>
> But the actual phrase is probably older.
>
>
> I found this at
> http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?
> articleID=3D19980015=
> 0
> , which also says
> <q>Airbus' two-year, multibillion-dollar production delay for the A380
> is attributed to many organizational issues, but one cause that
> bubbles
> to the surface in virtually all assessments was that local managers
> apparently balked at the time and expense involved in retraining
> engineers to use new design tools. Hindsight being 20/20, Airbus
> senior
> management is said to have adopted a new mantra: "Right people, right
> tools, right training and right management oversight." </q>
> Yes, I did notice that the "right people etc." quote was specified
> (correctly, I am sure) as a "mantra" rather than a "proverb".
>
> A few other proverbs/mantras/sayings/cliches that are definitely
> 20th or
> 21st century:
> "Speed kills".  This is actually two proverbs, the first one being
> about
> driving and the second about illegal drugs.
> "Don't drink and drive"
> "Click it or ticket" - this one I believe is only a couple of years
> old
> A saying from computer programmers that I may have submitted earlier:
> "Just when you make something idiot-proof, they invent a bigger
> idiot."
>      - Jim Landau
>
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