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The Nature of Software and the Laws of Software Process
They are accompanied by a collection of related observations on software
process.
The First Law of Software Process
Process only allows us to do things we already know how to do.
The Corollary to the First Law of Software Process
You cannot have a process for something you have never done nor do
not know how to do.
Explanation and Observations
The First Law is saying is that we can only define processes to the extent
that we know what to define. Topics that are extremely well defined — that
is, about which we know a great deal — can have extremely well-defined
processes. Topics that are vague or even unknown cannot have well-
defined processes. In Orders of Ignorance terms, we can only define ...