Programmers Quotes - Page 8

• Labor-rich manufacturing doesn't exist anymore. Manufacturing jobs are white-collar, Silicon Valley programmers or highly-skilled technicians. They are not going to employ lots of people.

  David Brooks

  Jobs, White, People

  "Brooks and Dionne on the GOP's dilemma and the role of 'common decency' in the campaign". "PBS NewsHour" with Judy Woodruff, www.pbs.org. August 12, 2016.

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• I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.

  Maurice Wilkes

  Mistake, Coders, Debugging

  Lecture titled "The Design and Use of the EDSAC" delivered by Maurice Wilkes at the Digital Computer Museum, tcm.computerhistory.org. September 23, 1979.

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• One of the best programmers I ever hired had only a High School degree; he's produced a lot of great software, has his own news group, and made enough in stock options to buy his own nightclub.

  Peter Norvig

  School, Groups, Degrees

  "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years". norvig.com. 2001.

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• Some compilers allow a check during execution that subscripts do not exceed array dimensions. This is a help, but not sufficient. First, many programmers do not use such compilers because They're not efficient. (Presumably, this means that it is vital to get the wrong answers quickly.)

  Brian Kernighan

  Mean, Firsts, Dimensions

  Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger (1978). “The Elements of Programming Style”, Computing McGraw-Hill

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• The error which underlies the very existence of this debate is that there is some kind of perfect Platonic form of the computer language, which some real languages reflect more perfectly than others. Plato was brilliant for his time but reality is not expressable in terms of arbitrary visions of perfection, and furthermore, one programmer's ideal is often another's hell.

  Paul Vixie

  Plato, Real, Errors

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• GOTO, n.: A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers to complain about unstructured programmers.

  Raymond Simard

  Complaining, Tools, Computer

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• Programming is not a zero-sum game. Teaching something to a fellow programmer doesn't take it away from you. I'm happy to share what I can, because I'm in it for the love of programming.

  John Carmack

  Zero, Teaching, Games

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• If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.

  Richard Stallman

  Creating, Use, Program

  Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.30, Lulu.com

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• Programmers are in the enviable position of not only getting to do what they want to, but because the end result is so important they get paid to do it. There are other professions like that, but not that many.

  Linus Torvalds

  Important, Want, Economy

  "FM Interviews: Interview with Linus Torvalds: What motivates software developers". Interview with Rishabh Aiyer Ghosh, firstmonday.org. October 3, 2005.

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• The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating systems.

  Bill Gates

  Success, Leadership, Work

  Interview with Suzanne Lammers, programmersatwork.wordpress.com. 1986.

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• The standard library saves programmers from having to reinvent the wheel.

  Bjarne Stroustrup

  Reading, Book, Thought Provoking

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind-computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands.The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind-creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers.These people-artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers-will now reap society's richest rewards and share its greatest joys.

  Daniel H. Pink

  Education, Creativity, Artist

  Daniel H. Pink (2006). “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future”, p.14, Penguin

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• In their work, designers often become expert with the device they are designing. Users are often expert at the task they are trying to perform with the device. [...] Professional designers are usually aware of the pitfalls. But most design is not done by professional designers, it is done by engineers, programmers, and managers.

  Donald A. Norman

  Design, Trying, Pitfalls

  "The Design of Everyday Things". Book by Don Norman, ch. 6, 1988.

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• The term architecture is used here to describe the attributes of a system as seen by the programmer, i.e., the conceptual structure and functional behavior, as distinct from the organization of the data flow and controls, the logical design, and the physical implementation. i. Additional details concerning the architecture

  Fred Brooks

  Data, Organization, Design

  "Architecture of the IBM System". IBM Journal of Research and Development, Volume 8, 1964.

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• Programmers can be lazy.

  Larry Wall

  Lazy

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• The programmer's primary weapon in the never-ending battle against slow system is to change the intramodular structure. Our first response should be to reorganize the modules' data structures.

  Fred Brooks

  Data, Battle, Weapons

  "Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction". Book by Steve C. McConnell, 1993.

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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