Code Quality Quotes

• Testing by itself does not improve software quality. Test results are an indicator of quality, but in and of themselves, they don't improve it. Trying to improve software quality by increasing the amount of testing is like trying to lose weight by weighing yourself more often. What you eat before you step onto the scale determines how much you will weigh, and the software development techniques you use determine how many errors testing will find. If you want to lose weight, don't buy a new scale; change your diet. If you want to improve your software, don't test more; develop better.

  Steve McConnell

  Errors, Simplicity, Trying

  Steve McConnell (2004). “Code Complete”, p.501, Pearson Education

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• Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.

  Alan Kay

  Funny Inspirational, Integrity, Technology

  "A Conversation with Alan Kay: Big talk with the creator of Smalltalk — and much more". Interview with Stuart Feldman in ACM Queue, Volume 2, issue 9, queue.acm.org. December 27, 2004.

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• Don't document bad code - rewrite it.

  Brian Kernighan

  Programming, Software Engineering, Documents

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• Programs should be written and polished until they acquire publication quality.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Program, Should, Software Engineering

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  Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.

  Bill Gates

  Success, Trust, Leadership

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• At first I hoped that such a technically unsound project would collapse but I soon realized it was doomed to success. Almost anything in software can be implemented, sold, and even used given enough determination. There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars. But there is one quality that cannot be purchased in this way - and that is reliability. The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay.

  Tony Hoare

  Determination, Learning, Simplicity

  "The Emperor's Old Clothes". Communications of the ACM 24, dl.acm.org. February 1981.

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• Are you quite sure that all those bells and whistles, all those wonderful facilities of your so called powerful programming languages, belong to the solution set rather than the problem set?

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Powerful, Bells, Language

  Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (1976). “A Discipline of Programming”, Prentice Hall

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• Time pressure gradually corrupts an engineer's standard of quality and perfection. It has a detrimental effect on people as well as products

  Niklaus Wirth

  People, Perfection, Pressure

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• An API that isn't comprehensible isn't usable.

  James Gosling

  Programming, Software Engineering, Quality

  "A Conversation with James Gosling". Interview with Bill Venners, www.artima.com. Jun 9, 2003.

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• Good visual layout shows the logical structure of a program.

  Steve McConnell

  Logical, Program, Structure

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• The simple fact is that code quality tends to improve as you move between platforms... non-obvious bugs on Windows become VERY obvious in the Linux port and vice versa, and thus get fixed. So even the Windows gamers will win in all of this.

  Ryan C. Gordon

  Moving, Winning, Simple

  "Chat with Ryan Gordon". Chrono's Pad, February 11, 2001.

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• Releasing Linux versions has always been a matter of higher code quality, good software architecture, and technical interest for the platform.

  Timothee Besset

  Matter, Linux, Architecture

  "id Software and Linux – By TTimo". Linux Gaming News, linuxgamingnews.org. September 15, 2009.

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