John Carmack Quotes

Quotes about:

• In the information age, the barriers [to entry into programming] just aren't there. The barriers are self imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don't need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it. We slept on floors. We waded across rivers.

  John Carmack

  Dedication, Self, Rivers

  "Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture". Book by David Kushner, May 6, 2003.

  55 Copy quote

• Focus is a matter of deciding what things you're not going to do.

  John Carmack

  Inspirational, Focus, Matter

  61 Copy quote

• Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better.

  John Carmack

  Inspirational, Success, Real

  "The Rise And Fall of Ion Storm" by John Carmack, slashdot.org. January 2, 2002.

  75 Copy quote

• Sometimes, the elegant implementation is just a function. Not a method. Not a class. Not a framework. Just a function.

  John Carmack

  Class, Sometimes, Framework

  Twitter post from Mar 31, 2011

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• If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better.

  John Carmack

  Next Steps, Way, Work Related

  "The Rise And Fall of Ion Storm" by John Carmack, slashdot.org. January 2, 2002.

  8 Copy quote

• Programming is not a zero-sum game. Teaching something to a fellow programmer doesn't take it away from you. I'm happy to share what I can, because I'm in it for the love of programming.

  John Carmack

  Zero, Teaching, Games

  60 Copy quote

• Low-level programming is good for the programmer's soul.

  John Carmack

  Soul, Levels, Computer

  7 Copy quote

• Rocket science has been mythologized all out of proportion to its true difficulty.

  John Carmack

  Rockets, Proportion, Difficulty

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• I recognize that I possess a very special intellect, but at the same time, I recognize that I'm lacking in a lot of areas. But being well-rounded is greatly overrated.

  John Carmack

  Inspirational, Special, Intellect

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• An interesting question: is it easier to motivate a learned individual that never does anything, or educate an ignorant individual that actually produces things?

  John Carmack

  Interesting, Ignorant, Doe

  6 Copy quote

• The cost of adding a feature isn't just the time it takes to code it. The cost also includes the addition of an obstacle to future expansion. ... The trick is to pick the features that don't fight each other.

  John Carmack

  Fighting, Simplicity, Expansion

  15 Copy quote

• The speed of light sucks.

  John Carmack

  Light, Speed, Speed Of Light

  "The Egos At Id". Interview with Marc Laidlaw, www.wired.com. August 1, 1996.

  17 Copy quote

• One of the big lessons of a big project is you don't want people that aren't really programmers programming, you'll suffer for it!

  John Carmack

  People, Suffering, Lessons

  7 Copy quote

• You can prematurely optimize maintainability, flexibility, security, and robustness just like you can performance.

  John Carmack

  Like You, Performances, Security

  Twitter post from Sep 27, 2014

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• It is not that uncommon for the cost of an abstraction to outweigh the benefit it delivers. Kill one today!

  John Carmack

  Cost, Benefits, Today

  Twitter post from Oct 11, 2010

  7 Copy quote

• If you're willing to restrict the flexibility of your approach, you can almost always do something better

  John Carmack

  Programming, Approach, Something Better

  12 Copy quote

• Note to self: Pasty-skinned programmers ought not stand in the Mojave desert for multiple hours.

  John Carmack

  Self, Mojave, Desert

  John Carmack's plan of Quake 3 Arena Project, www.bluesnews.com. May 15, 2000.

  59 Copy quote

• The Escalation programmers come from a completely different background, and the codebase is all STL this, boost that, fill-up-the-property list, dispatch the event, and delegate that. I had been harboring some suspicions that our big codebases might benefit from the application of some more of the various “modern” C++ design patterns, despite seeing other large game codebases suffer under them. I have since recanted that suspicion.

  John Carmack

  Games, Design, Suffering

  "John Carmack discusses RAGE on iPhone/iPad/iPod" by John Carmack, www.bethblog.com. October 26, 2010.

  51 Copy quote

• The important point is that the cost of adding a feature isn't just the time it takes to code it. The cost also includes the addition of an obstacle to future expansion. Sure, any given feature list can be implemented, given enough coding time. But in addition to coming out late, you will usually wind up with a codebase that is so fragile that new ideas that should be dead-simple wind up taking longer and longer to work into the tangled existing web. The trick is to pick the features that don't fight each other.

  John Carmack

  Learning, Fighting, Simple

  16 Copy quote

• Making one brilliant decision and a whole bunch of mediocre ones isn't as good as making a whole bunch of generally smart decisions throughout the whole process.

  John Carmack

  Smart, Decision, Brilliant

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• Some cynical people think that every activity must revolve around the mighty dollar, and that anyone saying otherwise is just attempting to delude the public. I will probably never be able to convice them that that isn't always the case, but I do have the satisfaction of knowing that I live in a less dingy world than they do.

  John Carmack

  Thinking, Knowing, People

  12 Copy quote

• Focused, hard work is the real key to success.

  John Carmack

  Real, Hard Work, Keys

  "The Rise and Fall of Ion Storm". Slashdot, January 2, 2002.

  8 Copy quote

• Because of the nature of Moore's law, anything that an extremely clever graphics programmer can do at one point can be replicated by a merely competent programmer some number of years later.

  John Carmack

  Clever, Years, Law

  GameSpy.com Interview with Tom Ham, January 2004.

  7 Copy quote

• I'd rather have a search engine or a compiler on a deserted island than a game.

  John Carmack

  Islands, Games, Search Engine

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• Programming in the abstract sense is what I really enjoy. I enjoy lots of different areas of it... I'm taking a great deal of enjoyment writing device drivers for Linux. I could also be having a good time writing a database manager or something because there are always interesting problems.

  John Carmack

  Writing, Interesting, Linux

  Firing Squad Interview with Bob Colayco, February 9, 2000.

  8 Copy quote

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