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Perfect is the enemy of good is an aphorism which is commonly attributed to Voltaire, who quoted an Italian proverb in his ''Dictionnaire philosophique'' in 1770: "''Le meglio è l'inimico del bene''". It subsequently appeared in his moral poem, ''La Bégueule'', which starts Its sense in English literature can be traced back to Shakespeare, In his tragedy, ''King Lear'', the Duke of Albany warns of "striving to better, oft we mar what's well" and in Sonnet 103: The meaning of "The perfect is the enemy of the good" is that we might never complete a task if we have decided not to stop until it is perfect. In that sense, completing the project well ("the good") is made impossible by striving to complete it perfectly. Earlier, Aristotle, Confucius and other classical philosophers propounded the related principle of the golden mean, which counsels against extremism in general. The Pareto principle or 80–20 rule is a 20th-century analogue. For example, it commonly takes 20% of the full time to complete 80% of a task, while to complete the last 20% of a task takes 80% of the effort. Achieving absolute perfection may be impossible and so, as increasing effort results in diminishing returns, further activity becomes increasingly inefficient. Watson-Watt, who developed early warning radar in Britain to counter the rapid growth of the Luftwaffe, propounded a "cult of the imperfect", which he described as, "Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes." Economist George Stigler says that "If you never miss a plane, you're spending too much time at the airport." ==See also== *Gold plating (software engineering) *Nirvana fallacy *Utopia *Worse is better *In the field of computer program optimization, Donald Knuth is often quoted: "Premature optimization is the root of all evil" 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Perfect is the enemy of good」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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