Ninety-Ninety Rule

Ninety-Ninety Rule
 n.

   "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."
    

Ninety-Ninety Rule
90-90 Rule

   <humour> "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".

   An aphorism attributed to Tom Cargill of Bell Labs, and
   popularised 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.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1995-07-14)