Laws of Life

[Mike Rivers]

I'm looking for a name. Back when PCs were fairly new, there was a "law"
that came
from one of the pundit magazine authors of the time that stated (more
concisely) that
when technological capabilities expand, applications will rapidly fill,
and exceed, the
newly made space. When the 10 MB hard drive dropped below $500, programs
rapidly
became too large to fit on a floppy disk. When the $500 CGA 12" monitor
became
available, programs ran slower because they had color GUIs. And so on.

Whose law was that, and what was its original statement?

[Don Pearce]

On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:57:12 -0500, Mike Rivers <mri...@d-and-d.com>
wrote:

I think you want Wirth's law, a parody of one of the gas laws -
"programmes expand to fill the memory available for them".

d

[Scott Dorsey]

In article <hdbrfc$23t$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,

Sounds like one of Fred Brooks' _Laws of Computer Programming_ from his
book _The Mythical Man-Month_. That predates the PC by a couple decades
and comes from Fred's work on OS/360.

Among the laws are "Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capabilities
of the programmer who must maintain it."

Although the effect you describe is really just a special case of
Parkinson's Law.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[anahata]

On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:57:12 -0500, Mike Rivers wrote:

> when technological capabilities expand, applications will rapidly fill,
> and exceed, the
> newly made space.

> Whose law was that, and what was its original statement?

Do you mean Parkinson's Law?
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_Law

--
Anahata
ana...@treewind.co.uk ==//== 01638 720444
http://www.treewind.co.uk ==//== http://www.myspace.com/maryanahata

[Mike Rivers]

Scott Dorsey wrote:

> Sounds like one of Fred Brooks' _Laws of Computer Programming_ from his
> book _The Mythical Man-Month_. That predates the PC by a couple decades
> and comes from Fred's work on OS/360.

I could have imagined such a law, or maybe I was thinking of Brooks'
Law. The name
that came to mind was Hooke's Law, but that's about springs and elasticity.

Maybe an extension of Parkinson's Law will do. Maybe I could name it
after myself
if someone else hasn't claimed it yet, though it's hard to believe that
it hasn't been
claimed/named.

[William Sommerwerck]

If one wanted to be unkind, one might call it "Gates' Law".

Or how about "Bloat's Law"?

[Ron Capik]

William Sommerwerck wrote:
> If one wanted to be unkind, one might call it "Gates' Law".
>
> Or how about "Bloat's Law"?
>

There already is a Gate's Law,
it's something to the effect
that software will become slower
at a rate that offsets Moore's Law.

[Jay Ts]

anahata wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:57:12 -0500, Mike Rivers wrote:
>
>> when technological capabilities expand, applications will rapidly fill,
>> and exceed, the
>> newly made space.
>> Whose law was that, and what was its original statement?
>
> Do you mean Parkinson's Law?
> "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_Law

There is Wiker's Law: Government expands to absorb revenue, and then some.

I think this quote predates personal computers, so maybe some credit is
deserved.

Jay Ts
--
To contact me, use this web page:
http://www.jayts.com/contact.php

[Les Cargill]

It's a corollary of Parkinson's Law :

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_Law

--
Les Cargill

[Les Cargill]

Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away.

--
Les Cargill

[Richard Crowley]

"Les Cargill" wrote...

> Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away.

I posted that here in my cubicle where we invent the horsepower
that they subsequently squander up there in Redmond. Thanks! :-)

[Arny Krueger]

"Richard Crowley" <rcro...@xp7rt.net> wrote in message
news:7m088hF...@mid.individual.net

Yes, its almost too true to be funny.