Programmers Quotes - Page 10

The choice of approaches could be made the responsibility of the programmer.

Larry Wall

Responsibility, Choices, Made

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As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be visually distinct.

Larry Wall

Real, Perl

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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.

Alan Perlis

Nests, Ballpoint Pens, Parentheses

"The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". Textbook by Gerald Jay Sussman and Hal Abelson, 2nd edition, 1996.

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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.

Alan Perlis

Cost, Lisp, Knows

"Epigrams on Programming". ACM SIGPLAN Notices 17 (9), pp. 7-13, pu.inf.uni-tuebingen.de. September 1982.

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If you're a musician or actor, you know that if you're successful, some level of fame goes along with that. You're prepared. But how often does that happen to a programmer?

Shawn Fanning

Successful, Musician, Doe

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

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All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists.

Fred Brooks

Believe, Frustration, Goal

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Voodoo Programming: Things programmers do that they know shouldn't work but they try anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling everything.

Karl Lehenbauer

Trying, Computer, Sometimes

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The effective exploitation of his powers of abstraction must be regarded as one of the most vital activities of a competent programmer.

Edsger Dijkstra

Exploitation, Activity, Abstraction

"The Humble Programmer". Edsger Dijkstra's ACM Turing Award lecture, "Communications of the ACM", Volume 15, No. 10, www.cs.utexas.edu. October 1972.

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Finding a technical cofounder would have been difficult for me. I was an English major and didn't know any computer programmers.

Jessica Livingston

Computer, Difficult, English Major

"The Advice For Any Woman Who Wants To Found A Startup" by Jessica Livingston, www.businessinsider.com. January 31, 2011.

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Quite frankly, even if the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out, that in itself would be a huge reason to use C.

Linus Torvalds

Choices, Would Be, Use

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Common programmer thought pattern: there are only three numbers: 0, 1, and n.

Joel Spolsky

Numbers, Three, Patterns

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The intellectual property situation is bad and getting worse. To be a programmer, it requires that you understand as much law as you do technology.

Eric Allman

Technology, Law, Intellectual

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Great programmers learn how to program their tools, not just use them.

Steve Yegge

Use, Tools, Program

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Computer languages of the future will be more concerned with goals and less with procedures specified by the programmer.

Marvin Minsky

Goal, Language, Computer

Turing Award Lectures Year Awarded 1969, dl.acm.org. 2007.

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Programmers can be lazy.

Larry Wall

Lazy

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Prolific programmers contribute to certain disaster.

Niklaus Wirth

Disaster, Programming, Certain

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It is a mistake to think that programmers wares are programs. Programmers have to produce trustworthy solutions and present it in the form of cogent arguments. Programs source code is just the accompanying material to which these arguments are to be applied to.

Edsger Dijkstra

Mistake, Thinking, Argument

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Most programming languages contain good parts and bad parts. I discovered that I could be better programmer by using only the good parts and avoiding the bad parts.

Douglas Crockford

Language, Programming, Avoiding

Douglas Crockford (2008). “JavaScript: The Good Parts: The Good Parts”, p.1, "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

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Programming is how we talk to the machines that are increasingly woven into our lives. If you aren't a programmer, you're like one of the unlettered people of the Middle Ages who were told what to think by the literate priesthood. We had a Renaissance when more people could read and write; we'll have another one when everyone programs.

Tim O'Reilly

Writing, Thinking, People

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And no, I'm not a walking C++ dictionary. I do not keep every technical detail in my head at all times. If I did that, I would be a much poorer programmer. I do keep the main points straight in my head most of the time, and I do know where to find the details when I need them.

Bjarne Stroustrup

Details, Would Be, Needs

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Here's the secret that every successful software company is based on: You can domesticate programmers the way beekeepers tame bees. You can't exactly communicate with them, but you can get them to swarm in one place and when they're not looking, you can carry off the honey.

Orson Scott Card

Successful, Secret, Honey

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Too many managers and executives try to reduce programming to a low-level assembly-line activity. That's inefficient, wasteful, costly in the long run, and inhumane to programmers.

Bjarne Stroustrup

Running, Long, Trying

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To many managers, getting rid of the arrogant, undisciplined, over-paid, technology-obsessed, improperly-dressed etc. programmers would appear to be a significant added benefit

Bjarne Stroustrup

Technology, Arrogant, Benefits

Bjarne Stroustrup (2000). “The C++ Programming Language”, Addison-Wesley Professional

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Another effective [debugging] technique is to explain your code to someone else. This will often cause you to explain the bug to yourself. Sometimes it takes no more than a few sentences, followed by an embarrassed "Never mind, I see what's wrong. Sorry to bother you." This works remarkably well; you can even use non-programmers as listeners. One university computer center kept a teddy bear near the help desk. Students with mysterious bugs were required to explain them to the bear before they could speak to a human counselor.

Brian Kernighan

Sorry, Learning, Mind

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In a weird way, riffing on genres is kind of a reaction to formula. When you watch so much of the programmers and the films that you just think you've seen before, it's kind of going back to the well in terms of trying to conjure up the spirit of what made you excited about films in the first place.

Edgar Wright

Thinking, Genre Is, Trying

"Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, and Edgar Wright of Hot Fuzz". Interview with Keith Phipps, film.avclub.com. April 18, 2007.

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