Programming Funny Quotes

• Java is C++ without the guns, clubs and knives.

  James Gosling

  Gun, Knives, Java

  "Object Oriented Programming with C++ (Second Edition)". Book by David Parsons, November 8, 2000.

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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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• The best performance improvement is the transition from the nonworking state to the working state.

  John Ousterhout

  Inspirational, Transition, Improvement

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• Talk is cheap. Show me the code.

  Linus Torvalds

  Coders, Linux, Programming

  Linux kernel mailing list message, lkml.org. August 25, 2000.

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• As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when 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, Technology, Coders

  "The Design and Use of the EDSAC". Lecture delivered at the Digital Computer Museum, September 23, 1979.

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• Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Programming, Faster, Software

  "Excel HSC Softw Design&Devel + Cards SG". Book by Geoff Lancaster, 2001.

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• I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand.

  Douglas Adams

  Hands, Tasks, Computer

  Douglas Adams, Mark Carwardine (2011). “Last Chance to See”, p.49, Ballantine Books

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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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• Most of the good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program.

  Linus Torvalds

  Fun, Work, Program

  "First Monday Interview with Linus Torvalds: What motivates free software developers?". Interview with Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, firstmonday.org. March 2, 1998.

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• Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.

  Brian Kernighan

  Inspirational, Funny, Smart

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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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• Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.

  Brian Kernighan

  Technology, Essence, Simplicity

  Brian W. Kernighan (1981). “Software Tools in Pascal”, Addison-Wesley Professional

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• No matter how slick the demo is in rehearsal, when you do it in front of a live audience the probability of a flawless presentation is inversely proportional to the number of people watching, raised to the power of the amount of money involved.

  Mark Gibbs

  Technology, Numbers, People

  "The myth of the digital lifestyle" by Mark Gibbs, www.networkworld.com. January 9, 2006.

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

  Tony Hoare

  Roots, Evil, Simplicity

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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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• Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.

  Larry Wall

  Funny, Technology, Three

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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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• 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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• 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 generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.

  Robert Coveyou

  Learning, Numbers, Important

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• C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success.

  Dennis Ritchie

  Quirky, Computer, Programming

  "Inventing Unix". Interview with Samuel K. Moore, Steven Cherry, spectrum.ieee.org. May 27, 2011.

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• Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later

  Fred Brooks

  Computer, Projects, Programming

  "The Mythical Man-Month," Datamation, Dec. 1974

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• Any fool can use a computer. Many do.

  Ted Nelson

  Technology, Use, Fool

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• The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Clever, Humility, Skulls

  "The humble programmer" by Edsger Dijkstra in "Communications of the ACM", Volume 15, Issue 10 (pp. 859-866), dl.acm.org. October 1972.

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• Nine people can't make a baby in a month.

  Fred Brooks

  Baby, People, Nine

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