Niklaus Wirth Quotes

When you make content, you try things, and they don't always work. You learn from it and figure out what's next.

You need to make mistakes in rehearsal because that's how you find out what works and what doesn't.

More can be learned from what works than from what fails.

I think if I try to develop a formula, it ends up not working.

Often I'll try things that just won't happen the way I'd like them to, so hearing that they're not working saves me some wear and tear the next time around.

Every time you find something that doesn't work, you're a step closer to what does work.

Much can often be learned by the repetition under different conditions, even if the desired result is not obtained.

For me, I'd rather be the inventive one, and if something doesn't work, I'll go back to the workshop, put it on the bench, and pound on it for awhile.

I have ideas that I think might be amusing, and I try them, and if they look right, I carry them out, and if they don't, I throw them out and try something else. I don't agonize about it.

Almost nothing works the first time it's attempted. Just because what you're doing does not seem to be working, doesn't mean it won't work. It just means that it might not work the way you're doing it.

Most intuitive ideas have to be clarified, so there is a trial and error process.

Think small. Don't pretend you know the answers. Experiment; get feedback. These are all the premises of 'Think Like a Freak,' really.

In software design, it's all about making a guess, trying it, and then learning from the experience.

Doing the simple thing first doesn't mean your solution will work forever.

Science is the practice of failing repeatedly but learning as you go.

In testing, you make a mistake, you just say 'OK we'll have another go' instead of it being the only chance you get.

Essentially, 'Z2' ended up feeling the way that it should, but it was through a considerable amount of trial and error that it took to get there.

Design, refine and repeat, and keep learning all the way along. It sounds bland and pedestrian, but in fact, it's the reverse.

When you're first starting a show, any show, you learn what works and what doesn't work, and it's a kind of trial and error thing.

In tech, you create the foundation; even sometimes if it doesn't work, you take that same developmental idea, and you use it to apply to a different area.

Sometimes I do that quite a lot, go back and forth a lot between ideas. Try things out.

Engineers are very logical and everything has to be tested so when we fail, we'll know why and how to improve things.

It is not a simple matter to differentiate unsuccessful from successful experiments. . . .[Most] work that is finally successful is the result of a series of unsuccessful tests in which difficulties are gradually eliminated.

The process of tracing regularity in any complicated, and at first sight confused, set of appearances, is necessarily tentative; we begin by making any supposition, even a false one, to see what consequences will follow from it ; and by observing how these differ from the real phenomena, we learn what corrections to make in our assumption.

I like to really spend the time and figure it out and rehearsal is to try something that doesn't work. It's hard to do that, because you always want to go with your impulse thought and you wonder if that's the one, did that work, you know?