Computer Software Quotes - Page 2

• The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry.

  Henry Petroski

  Technology, Achievement, Gains

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• The cheapest, fastest, and most reliable components are those that aren't there.

  Gordon Bell

  Engineering, Programming, Software

  45 Copy quote

• The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it's too late.

  Seymour Cray

  Technology, Too Late, Coders

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• Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected without, I thought, proper consideration.

  Stan Kelly-Bootle

  Funny Inspirational, Technology, Compromise

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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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• That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.

  Larry Niven

  Hate, Technology, Thinking

  7 Copy quote

• If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Funny, Debugging, Bugs

  108 Copy quote

• Considering the current sad state of our computer programs, software development is clearly still a black art, and cannot yet be called an engineering discipline.

  William J. Clinton

  Art, Technology, Engineering

  53 Copy quote

• Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the second law of thermodynamics; i.e. it always increases.

  Norman Ralph Augustine

  Science, Law, Literature

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• As a rule, software systems do not work well until they have been used, and have failed repeatedly, in real applications.

  David Parnas

  Real, Learning, Insomnia

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• Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.

  Donald Knuth

  Funny Inspirational, Bugs, Computer

  Memorandum to Peter van Emde Boas, 29 Mar. 1977

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• Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Science, Technology, Telescopes

  55 Copy quote

• One of my most productive days was throwing away 1,000 lines of code.

  Ken Thompson

  Great Day, Lines, Computer

  67 Copy quote

• Premature optimization is the root of all evil in programming.

  Tony Hoare

  Roots, Evil, Simplicity

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• If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it.

  Linus Torvalds

  Inspiring, Thinking, Inspire

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• Software is like sex: It's better when it's free.

  Linus Torvalds

  Sex, Technology, Linux

  Attributed to Torvalds at 1996 FSF conference,

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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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• 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.

  Jeff Atwood

  Meaningful, Technology, Ideas

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• I think it's a new feature. Don't tell anyone it was an accident.

  Larry Wall

  Thinking, Requirements, Computer

  Usenet article "s///e bizarreness", groups.google.com. January 4, 1991.

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• More than the act of testing, the act of designing tests is one of the best bug preventers known.

  Boris Beizer

  Design, Tests, Bugs

  Boris Beizer (1990). “Software Testing Techniques”, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company

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• We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.

  Donald Knuth

  Learning, Roots, Evil

  44 Copy quote

• It's hard enough to find an error in your code when you're looking for it; it's even harder when you've assumed your code is error-free.

  Steve McConnell

  Funny Inspirational, Errors, Coders

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• It's hardware that makes a machine fast. It's software that makes a fast machine slow.

  Craig Reucassel

  Machines, Computer, Software

  88 Copy quote

• I am confident that we can do better than GUIs because the basic problem with them (and with the Linux and Unix interfaces) is that they ask a human being to do things that we know experimentally humans cannot do well. The question I asked myself is, given everything we know about how the human mind works, could we design a computer and computer software so that we can work with the least confusion and greatest efficiency?

  Jef Raskin

  Confusion, Design, Mind

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• When I was at Tek, I was frustrated that computer hardware was being improved faster than computer software. I wanted to invent some software that was completely different, that would grow and change as it was used. That's how wiki came about.

  Ward Cunningham

  Frustrated, Different, Computer

  "Startup mines for riches in collaboration software". The Portland Tribune, March 4, 2008.

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