Programmers Quotes - Page 9

• You can effect a change of robbers every four years. Inestimable privilege - to pull off the glutted leech and attach the lean one! And you can not even choose among the lean leeches, but must accept those designated by the programmers and showmen who have the reptiles on tap!

  Ambrose Bierce

  Years, Leeches, Reptiles

  "The Shadow on The Dial and Other Essays". Book by Ambrose Bierce, www.pub22.net. 1909.

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• It's not that Perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language rewards idiotic behavior in a way that no other language or tool has ever done.

  Erik Naggum

  Tools, Done, Rewards

  "Can lisp do what perl does easily?". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. March 28, 2000.

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• An initial underscore already conveys strong feelings of magicalness to a C programmer.

  Larry Wall

  Strong, Feelings, Computer

  Usenet article, 1992.

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• Of course, it's hard to support full-time programmers, so we do get funds from a set of companies that are interested in the health of the Mozilla project and so are willing to support the people working for the Foundation as well.

  Mitchell Baker

  People, Support, Mozilla

  "Mozilla Foundation Chief Mitchell Baker Replies". Interview with Robin "Roblimo" Miller, interviews.slashdot.org. March 23, 2005.

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• It always helps to be a good programmer. It is important to like computers and to be able to think of things people would want to do with their computers.

  Bill Budge

  Thinking, People, Important

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• Programmers work in bursts of productivity. Then, they let the brain rest and get back into it. A lot about the office world is not a great fit for me.

  Marco Arment

  Office, Brain, World

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• It's there as a sop to former Ada programmers.

  Larry Wall

  Ada, Computer, Former

  "Regarding 10_000_000". Usenet article, 1991.

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• There are no standards for computer programmers and no group to certify them.

  David Parnas

  Groups, Computer, Standards

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• Not having a schedule is OK if it's your PhD and you plan to spend 14 years on the thing, or if you're a programmer working on the next Duke Nukem and we'll ship when we're good and ready. But for almost any kind of real business, you just have to know how long things are going to take, because developing a product costs money.

  Joel Spolsky

  Real, Years, Long

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• When the words are fuzzy, the programmers reflexively retreat to the most precise method of articulation available: source code. Although there is nothing more precise than code, there is also nothing more permanent or resistant to change. So the situation frequently crops up where nomenclature confusion drives programmers to begin coding prematurely, and that code becomes the de facto design, regardless of its appropriateness or correctness.

  Amari Cooper

  Learning, Confusion, Design

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• I don't like the feeling, but I've got to say that a little fear makes me a more focused, more responsible programmer.

  Kent Beck

  Feelings, Littles, Responsible

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• To harness the power of television for the education of our nation's children, everyone must get involved - television programmers, government leaders, teachers, and above all, parents.

  Edwin Newman

  Teacher, Children, Government

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• Don't blame me for the fact that competent programming, as I view it as an intellectual possibility, will be too difficult for the average programmer, you must not fall into the trap of rejecting a surgical technique because it is beyond the capabilities of the barber in his shop around the corner.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Fall, Views, Average

  Edsger W. Dijkstra (2012). “Selected Writings on Computing: A personal Perspective”, p.163, Springer Science & Business Media

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• Testing proves a programmer’s failure. Debugging is the programmer’s vindication.

  Boris Beizer

  Debugging, Testing, Prove

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

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• You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.

  Alan Perlis

  Attitude, Perspective, Vitality

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

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• The belief that complex systems require armies of designers and programmers is wrong. A system that is not understood in its entirety, or at least to a significant degree of detail by a single individual, should probably not be built.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Army, Degrees, Details

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• Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.

  Alan Perlis

  Analysis, Logic, Cases

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• By understanding a machine-oriented language, the programmer will tend to use a much more efficient method; it is much closer to reality.

  Donald Knuth

  Reality, Understanding, Use

  Donald E. Knuth (1997). “The Art of Computer Programming: Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms”, p.12, Addison-Wesley Professional

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• Programmers are as emotional and irrational as normal people

  Douglas Crockford

  Emotional, People, Normal

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• When designers replaced the command line interface with the graphical user interface, billions of people who are not programmers could make use of computer technology.

  Howard Rheingold

  Technology, People, Lines

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• I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.

  Kent Beck

  Greatness, Professionalism, Habit

  Jay Fields, Shane Harvie, Martin Fowler, Kent Beck (2009). “Refactoring: Ruby Edition”, p.74, Pearson Education

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• The central problem of C and C++ is that they require programmers to do their own memory management

  Eric S. Raymond

  Memories, Management, Problem

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• An organisation that treats its programmers as morons will soon have programmers that are willing and able to act like morons only.

  Bjarne Stroustrup

  Organization, Able, Treats

  "The C++ Programming Language". Book by Bjarne Stroustrup, October 1985.

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• Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse)

  Eric S. Raymond

  Writing, Reuse, Programming

  Eric S. Raymond (2001). “The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary”, p.24, "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

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• The system metaphor is a story that everyone--customers, programmers, and managers--can tell about how the system works.

  Kent Beck

  Stories, Metaphor, Customers

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