The Leprechauns of Software Engineering.

The software profession has a problem, widely recognized but which nobody seems willing to do much about. You can think of this problem as a variant of the well known “telephone game”, where some trivial rumor is repeated from one person to the next until it has become distorted beyond recognition and blown up out of all proportion.

Unfortunately, the objects of this telephone game are generally considered cornerstone truths of the discipline, to the point that their acceptance now hinders further progress.