The origin of Wout's Law

The idea for “Wout’s Law” came to me after a day of work. Our team was upgrading an existing network solution. We were confident that we had covered all the bases and thus assumed that everything worked on our first attempt. Everything was meticulously planned, yet, as expected, the upgrade failed on the first attempt. No matter how well-prepared we thought we were, it just didn’t work.

Later that same day, I was working on the codebase for a multiplayer virtual reality project. I was certain I had accounted for all the edge cases. But during testing, I realized I had overlooked at least two, and once again, the solution didn’t work on the first try.

That’s when it hit me, this wasn’t just bad luck. There seemed to be an unspoken rule in technology: no matter how carefully you prepare, the first attempt will almost always fail. It was something I had experienced over and over again.

I informed my colleagues about my revelation and said, “There’s always one constant when working with technology. It never works on the first try. This should be a law of nature!”

And that’s how Wout’s Law was born: “Every technological solution shall not work on your first attempt.”

It perfectly captured the reality we all face in tech whether it’s coding, system upgrades, or anything in between, the first attempt rarely goes as planned.