Programming Quotes - Page 8

• I, myself, have had many failures and I've learned that if you are not failing a lot, you are probably not being as creative as you could be -you aren't stretching your imagination.

  John Backus

  Learning, Imagination, Creative

  12 Copy quote

• The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

  Alan Kay

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  Walter Isaacson (2011). “Steve Jobs”, p.95, Simon and Schuster

  64 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't have any focus groups on talent and programming. If I need five people in a mall to be paid $40 to tell me how to do my job, I shouldn't do my job.

  Roger Ailes

  Jobs, People, Focus

  8 Copy quote

• I have been an unabashed fan of NPR for many years, and have stolen untold excellent ideas from its programming.

  Ted Koppel

  Npr, Years, Ideas

  7 Copy quote

• Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling -- the incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration.

  Niklaus Wirth

  People, Causes, Admiration

  23 Copy quote

• Every parent in America has the total power to control all television programming that is dispatched to their home today.

  Jack Valenti

  Home, Power, America

  7 Copy quote

• The unavoidable price of reliability is simplicity.

  Tony Hoare

  Simplicity, Reliability, Computer Science

  26 Copy quote

• The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures.

  Fred Brooks

  Media, Creating, Air

  "The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering". Book by Fred Brooks, 1975.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Adjusting to the requirement for perfection is, I think, the most difficult part of learning to program.

  Fred Brooks

  Thinking, Perfection, Requirements

  "The Mythical Man-Month". Book by Fred Brooks, 1975.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Data isn't information; information isn't knowledge; knowledge isn't wisdom.

  Ian Lowe

  Education, Wisdom, Learning

  123 Copy quote

• After graduating in 1973 I went into the programming field.

  W. Richard Stevens

  Fields, Graduates

  6 Copy quote

• Microsoft has a new version out, Windows XP, which according to everybody is the 'most reliable Windows ever.' To me, this is like saying that asparagus is 'the most articulate vegetable ever.'

  Dave Barry

  Technology, Vegetables, Microsoft

  Dave Barry (2003). “Boogers Are My Beat: More Lies, but Some Actual Journalism”, p.177, Crown Archetype

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's OK to figure out murder mysteries, but you shouldn't need to figure out code. You should be able to read it.

  Steve McConnell

  Murder Mysteries, Needs, Able

  Steve McConnell (2004). “Code Complete”, p.267, Pearson Education

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• A computer is like a violin. You can imagine a novice trying first a phonograph and then a violin. The latter, he says, sounds terrible. That is the argument we have heard from our humanists and most of our computer scientists. Computer programs are good, they say, for particular purposes, but they aren’t flexible. Neither is a violin, or a typewriter, until you learn how to use it.

  Marvin Minsky

  Typewriters, Trying, Sound

  28 Copy quote

• There's an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to use as his telephone. That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to use my telephone.

  Bjarne Stroustrup

  Technology, Wish, Stories

  49 Copy quote

• Clearly, programming courses should teach methods of design and construction, and the selected examples should be such that a gradual development can be nicely demonstrated.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Design, Example, Development

  "Program Development by Stepwise Refinement". Communications of the ACM, Vol. 14, No. 4, sunnyday.mit.edu. April 1971.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• That's what's cool about working with computers. They don't argue, they remember everything, and they don't drink all your beer.

  Paul Leary

  Beer, Technology, Remembers Everything

  7 Copy quote

• The only people who have anything to fear from free software are those whose products are worth even less.

  David F. Emery

  Technology, People, Computer

  7 Copy quote

• Any fool can use a computer. Many do.

  Ted Nelson

  Technology, Use, Fool

  22 Copy quote

• Computer language design is just like a stroll in the park. Jurassic Park, that is.

  Larry Wall

  Technology, Jurassic Park, Design

  10 Copy quote

• It is not about bits, bytes and protocols, but profits, losses and margins.

  Lou Gerstner

  Loss, Technology, Computer

  26 Copy quote

• It's ridiculous to live 100 years and only be able to remember 30 million bytes. You know, less than a compact disc. The human condition is really becoming more obsolete every minute.

  Marvin Minsky

  Technology, Years, Able

  25 Copy quote

• Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more 'user-friendly'... Their best approach so far has been to take all the old brochures and stamp the words 'user-friendly' on the cover.

  Bill Gates

  Technology, Trying, Friendly

  61 Copy quote

• The bulk of all patents are crap. Spending time reading them is stupid. It's up to the patent owner to do so, and to enforce them.

  Linus Torvalds

  Stupid, Reading, Technology

  6 Copy quote

• We have also obtained a glimpse of another crucial idea about languages and program design. This is the approach of statified design, the notion that a complex system should be structured as a sequence of levels that are described using a sequence of languages. Each level is constructed by combining parts that are regarded as primitive at that level, and the parts constructed at each level are used as primitives at the next level. The language used at each level of a stratified design has primitives, means of combination, and means of abstraction appropriate to that level of detail.

  Hal Abelson

  Learning, Mean, Ideas

  7 Copy quote