Computer Programming Quotes - Page 7

• That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted.

  George Boole

  Learning, Expression, Language

  George Boole (1854). “An Investigation of the Laws of Thought: On which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities”, p.24

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• Opposites are not contradictory but complementary.

  Niels Bohr

  Education, Teacher, Learning

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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, Code Quality

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

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• One purpose of CRC cards [a design tool] is to fail early, to fail often, and to fail inexpensively. It is a lot cheaper to tear up a bunch of cards that it would be to reorganize a large amount of source code.

  Cay S. Horstmann

  Learning, Design, Tears

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• If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls Royce would today cost $100 and get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside.

  Robert X. Cringely

  Funny, Humor, Technology

  "Noted from the field". "InfoWorld Magazine", Volume 11, Number 10, March 6, 1989.

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• If you think about computer programming, it's as antisocial as it gets.

  Shawn Fanning

  Thinking, Computer, Antisocial

  "The Music Swapper: Shawn Fanning". From Interview with Jeff Howe, www.wired.com. August 01, 2005.

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• We think only through the medium of words. Languages are true analytical methods. Algebra, which is adapted to its purpose in every species of expression, in the most simple, most exact, and best manner possible, is at the same time a language and an analytical method. The art of reasoning is nothing more than a language well arranged.

  Antoine Lavoisier

  Art, Learning, Simple

  "Elements of Chemistry". Book by Antoine Lavoisier, 1790.

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• There is a race between the increasing complexity of the systems we build and our ability to develop intellectual tools for understanding their complexity. If the race is won by our tools, then systems will eventually become easier to use and more reliable. If not, they will continue to become harder to use and less reliable for all but a relatively small set of common tasks. Given how hard thinking is, if those intellectual tools are to succeed, they will have to substitute calculation for thought.

  Leslie Lamport

  Learning, Thinking, Race

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• It is not about bits, bytes and protocols, but profits, losses and margins.

  Lou Gerstner

  Loss, Technology, Computer

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• There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.

  Ken Olsen

  Funny, Business, Stupid

  "The 10 Stupidest Things Ever Said By Tech's Smartest People" by Dylan Love, www.businessinsider.com. April 17, 2013.

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• 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

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• One can think effectively only when one is willing to endure suspense and to undergo the trouble of searching.

  John Dewey

  Education, Teacher, Learning

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• Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.

  Alan Kay

  Simple, Simplicity, Should

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• Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

  Howard Aiken

  Life And Love, Business, Congratulations

  "A Computer Science Reader : Selections from Abacus" by Eric A. Weiss, (p. 404), 1988.

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• A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

  Douglas Adams

  Inspirational, Funny, Fake People

  Douglas Adams (2012). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five”, p.690, Pan Macmillan

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• The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

  Isaac Asimov

  Inspirational, Funny, Motivational

  "Betting On a Bass That Belts Them Out; Singing Fish Becomes Season’s Unlikely Hit" by Darragh Johnson, The Washington Post, July 30, 2000.

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• The best way to predict the future is to create it.

  Peter Drucker

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

  Peter Drucker

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

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• 

  It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Mathematics, Mathematical, Possession

  Letter to Farkas Bolyai, September 02, 1808.

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• If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger.

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  Technology, Men, Buttons

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• They know enough who know how to learn.

  Henry Adams

  Education, Teacher, Learning

  The Education of Henry Adams ch. 21 (1907)

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• A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.

  Grace Hopper

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  1987 Address at Trinity College, Washington. Reported in Time, 22 Jun.

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• It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Inspirational, Education, Teacher

  "'The Ascent of Man' ('Knowledge or Certainty')". Documentary TV Mini-Series, Episode 11, 1973.

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• Chance favors the prepared mind.

  Louis Pasteur

  Inspirational, Softball, Sports

  Lecture, University of Lille, December 7б 1854.

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• Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs. Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do.

  Donald Knuth

  Change, Attitude, Learning

  "The Art of Computer Programming. Volume 3". Book by Donald Knuth, www.wired.com. 1973.

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