Programmers Quotes - Page 2

• The unavoidable price of reliability is simplicity.

  Tony Hoare

  Simplicity, Reliability, Programming

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• If you cannot grok the overall structure of a program while taking a shower, you are not ready to code it.

  Richard E. Pattis

  Simplicity, Program, Structure

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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 question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Technology, Thinking, Swim

  Interview with Jack Schofield, www.theguardian.com. August 19, 2002.

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• More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason - including blind stupidity.

  William Wulf

  Names, Stupidity, Sin

  "A Case Against the GOTO," Proceedings of the 25th National ACM Conference, (pp. 791-797), August 1972.

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• For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless. And then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match.

  Bill Bryson

  Stupid, Smart, Technology

  "Notes from a Big Country" / "I'm a Stranger Here Myself", Book by Bill Bryson, 1998.

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• The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Witty, Humorous, Teaching

  "How do we tell truths that might hurt?" by Edsger Dijkstra, June 18, 1975.

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• C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off.

  Bjarne Stroustrup

  Funny, Witty, Humorous

  Bjarne Stroustrup's FAQ: Did you really say that?, www.stroustrup.com.

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• Premature optimization is the root of all evil.

  Donald Knuth

  Science, Roots, Evil

  Donald Ervin Knuth (1986). “TEX: The Program”, Addison-Wesley Professional

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• 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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• 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

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Funny, Debugging, Bugs

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• There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.

  Tony Hoare

  Witty, Humorous, Simple

  "The Emperor's Old Clothes". Communications of the ACM 24 (2), (pp. 75-83), February 1981.

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• 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

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• Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

  E. F. Schumacher

  Inspirational, Motivational, Courage

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• The best programmers are not marginally better than merely good ones. They are an order-of-magnitude better, measured by whatever standard: conceptual creativity, speed, ingenuity of design, or problem-solving ability.

  Randall E. Stross

  Creativity, Technology, Order

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• When debugging, novices insert corrective code; experts remove defective code.

  Richard E. Pattis

  Quality, Experts, Debugging

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

  Gordon Bell

  Engineering, Programming, Software

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

  Tony Hoare

  Roots, Evil, Simplicity

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• Real programmers can write assembly code in any language.

  Larry Wall

  Real, Writing, Technology

  Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Jon Orwant (2004). “Programming Perl: 3rd Edition”, p.543, "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

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• It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter.

  Nathaniel Borenstein

  Writing, Baghdad, Ethics

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• Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law

  Douglas Hofstadter

  Law, Research, Favourite

  Godel, Escher, Bach ch. 5 (1979)

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• There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

  Alan Perlis

  Writing, Errors, Two

  "Epigrams on Programming". ACM "SIGPLAN" Notices 17 (9), (pp. 7-13), September 1982.

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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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• 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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