Programming Pearls - Column 6: The Back of the Envelope

It was in the middle of a fascinating conversion on software engineering that Bob Martin asked me, "How much water flows out of the Mississippi River in a day?" Because I had found his comments up to that point deeply insightful, I politely stifled my true response and said, "Pardon me?" When he asked me again I realized that I had no choicr but to humor the poor fellow, who had obviously cracked under the pressures of running a large software shop within Bell Labs.