To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.
The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.
In software, we rarely have meaningful requirements. Even if we do, the only measure of success that matters is whether our solution solves the customer's shifting idea of what their problem is.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.
On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
The cheapest, fastest, and most reliable components are those that aren't there.
The best programmers are not marginally better than merely good ones. They are an order-of-magnitude better, measured by whatever standard: conceptual creativity, speed, ingenuity of design, or problem-solving ability.
No matter how slick the demo is in rehearsal, when you do it in front of a live audience the probability of a flawless presentation is inversely proportional to the number of people watching, raised to the power of the amount of money involved.
Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.
When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter.
Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.
I loved logic, math, computer programming. I loved systems and logic approaches. And so I just figured architecture is this perfect combination.
Any fool can use a computer. Many do.
In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.
The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it.
Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.
Microsoft has a new version out, Windows XP, which according to everybody is the 'most reliable Windows ever.' To me, this is like saying that asparagus is 'the most articulate vegetable ever.'
Computers are getting smarter all the time. Scientists tell us that soon they will be able to talk to us. (And by 'they', I mean 'computers'. I doubt scientists will ever be able to talk to us.)
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