Programming Quotes - Page 14

• One purpose of CRC cards [a design tool] is to fail early, to fail often, and to fail inexpensively. It is a lot cheaper to tear up a bunch of cards that it would be to reorganize a large amount of source code.

  Cay S. Horstmann

  Learning, Design, Tears

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• When certain concepts of TeX are introduced informally, general rules will be stated; afterwards you will find that the rules aren't strictly true. In general, the later chapters contain more reliable information than the earlier ones do. The author feels that this technique of deliberate lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. Once you understand a simple but false rule, it will not be hard to supplement that rule with its exceptions.

  Donald Knuth

  Lying, Learning, Simple

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• We think only through the medium of words. Languages are true analytical methods. Algebra, which is adapted to its purpose in every species of expression, in the most simple, most exact, and best manner possible, is at the same time a language and an analytical method. The art of reasoning is nothing more than a language well arranged.

  Antoine Lavoisier

  Art, Learning, Simple

  "Elements of Chemistry". Book by Antoine Lavoisier, 1790.

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• In the beginning we must simplify the subject, thus unavoidably falsifying it, and later we must sophisticate away the falsely simple beginning.

  Maimonides

  Learning, Simple, Simplify

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• Computer science is to biology what calculus is to physics. It's the natural mathematical technique that best maps the character of the subject.

  Harold Morowitz

  Learning, Character, Technique

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• You have to honor failure, because failure is just the negative space around success.

  Richard R. Nelson

  Learning, Space, Honor

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• Code should run as fast as necessary, but no faster; something important is always traded away to increase speed.

  Richard E. Pattis

  Running, Learning, Important

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• Obviously with the onset of cable and satellite, there are more opportunities for programming and original programming, so it creates more opportunities for actors and producers and directors and everything.

  Anthony Michael Hall

  Opportunity, Directors, Actors

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• Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity. ... The geniuses of the computer field, on the the other hand, are the people with the keenest aesthetic senses, the ones who are capable of creating beauty. Beauty is decisive at every level: the most important interfaces, the most important programming languages, the winning algorithms are the beautiful ones.

  David Gelernter

  Beautiful, Learning, Winning

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• Object-oriented programming as it emerged in Simula 67 allows software structure to be based on real-world structures, and gives programmers a powerful way to simplify the design and construction of complex programs.

  David Gelernter

  Powerful, Real, Learning

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• BASIC is to computer programming as QWERTY is to typing.

  Seymour Papert

  Computer, Typing, Computer Programming

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• Treating your users as co-developers is your least-hassle route to rapid code improvement and effective debugging.

  Eric S. Raymond

  Debugging, Improvement, Rapids

  Eric S. Raymond (2001). “The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary”, p.27, "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

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• If you have the right attitude, interesting problems will find you.

  Eric S. Raymond

  Attitude, Interesting, Problem

  Eric S. Raymond (2001). “The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary”, p.26, "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

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• I'm doubtful about the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try the experiment?

  Lewis Carroll

  Trying, Flamingos, Temper

  Lewis Carroll (1869). “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”, p.133

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• A good way to have good ideas is by being unoriginal.

  Bram Cohen

  Ideas, Way, Good Way

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• No communication technology has ever disappeared, but instead becomes increasingly less important as the technological horizon widens.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Communication, Technology, Important

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• Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.

  Jakob Nielsen

  Mean, Way, Site

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• Testing shows the presence, not the absence of bugs.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Bugs, Absence, Shows

  "Software Engineering Techniques". Report on a conference sponsored by the NATO Science Committee in Rome, Italy, edited by J.N. Buxton and B. Randell, October 27-31, 1969.

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• The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Confused, Challenges, Scientist

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• There is a race between the increasing complexity of the systems we build and our ability to develop intellectual tools for understanding their complexity. If the race is won by our tools, then systems will eventually become easier to use and more reliable. If not, they will continue to become harder to use and less reliable for all but a relatively small set of common tasks. Given how hard thinking is, if those intellectual tools are to succeed, they will have to substitute calculation for thought.

  Leslie Lamport

  Learning, Thinking, Race

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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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• I made up the term "object-oriented," and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.

  Alan Kay

  Mind, Term, Computer Language

  "The Computer Revolution hasn't happend yet". Alan Kay's keynote at OOPSLA conference, www.youtube.com. 1997.

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• Computer system analysis is like child-rearing; you can do grievous damage, but you cannot ensure success.

  Tom DeMarco

  Children, Analysis, Damage

  Tom DeMarco (1978). “Structured analysis and system specification”, Yourdon Press

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• People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones.

  Donald Knuth

  Art, Wall, Reality

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• Low-level programming is good for the programmer's soul.

  John Carmack

  Soul, Levels, Computer

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