"A clear violation of the principle of least astonishment" was a phrase first used in my presence by Jim Doody (then) of Marine Midland Bank at a GUIDE meeting in 1975. It was obvious what it meant, but I cornered him afterwards to ask him about it.
He did not claim originality. It stuck in my mind, so I wrote wrote it on a 5081 punched card, and displayed it on the cork boards above my desk for a number of years afterwards (along with a number of other great quotes from Jim and others). Jim told me, perhaps in jest (but you never knew), that he stole it from Ron Higgin. Regardless, in 1975 both Jim and Ron (and as far as the audience reaction [laughter] evidenced, a number of others) considered it to be in the vernacular. Since I had the habit of writing the (current) date on all of my cute "card notes" I know for a fact that the year was 1975. -- WB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
