"The first 90% of the code
accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining
10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development
time." Attributed to Tom Cargill of Bell Labs, and popularized by
Jon Bentley's September 1985 "Bumper-Sticker Computer Science"
column in "Communications of the ACM". It was there called
the "Rule of Credibility", a name which seems not to have stuck.
Other maxims in the same vein include the law attributed to the
early British computer scientist Douglas Hartree: "The time from
now until the completion of the project tends to become constant."
