If one is looking to triangulate here's that same tenet in systems theory known as Gall's Law [0].

"A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system."

[0] Systemantics by John Gall https://books.google.com/books/about/Systemantics.html?id=ql...

That's in EWD1175: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD11xx/E...

Ok, maybe you can help settle this for me. I know that phrasing appears in EWD1175, but years ago I came across this[1] which claims it was originally a handwritten annotation to EWD498. So that's how I've always cited it (I prefer Dikstra's phrasing to Hoare's.)

Some searching today found a wikiquote page[2] which led me here[3] also claiming an EWD498 handwritten annotation as the source.

Do you know definitively whether the annotation appears in EWD498?

(I thought at one time I actually found an image with the handwritten annotation, but I can't find it at the moment... Maybe I dreamed that...)

1. http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html 2. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Edsger_W._Dijkstra 3. http://web.archive.org/web/200011201643/http://www.cbi.umn.e...