Software Quotes

• If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Funny, Debugging, Bugs

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• There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed.

  Bill Gates

  Numbers, Want, Bugs

  "Focus" Magazine, October 23, 2005.

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• When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Beauty, Beautiful, Niece

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• Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering.

  Bill Gates

  Engineering, Combination, Artistry

  Bill Gates, Janet Lowe (1998). “Bill Gates Speaks: Insight from the World's Greatest Entrepreneur”, p.70, John Wiley & Sons

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• When debugging, novices insert corrective code; experts remove defective code.

  Richard E. Pattis

  Quality, Experts, Debugging

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• Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

  Martin Fowler

  Inspirational, Funny, Humorous

  Jay Fields, Shane Harvie, Martin Fowler, Kent Beck (2009). “Refactoring: Ruby Edition”, p.36, Pearson Education

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• If you cannot grok the overall structure of a program while taking a shower, you are not ready to code it.

  Richard E. Pattis

  Simplicity, Program, Structure

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• It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

  Albert Einstein

  Courage, Moving, Simple

  "Small is Beautiful". The Radical Humanist, Vol. 37, No. 5, (p. 22), August 1973.

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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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• It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter.

  Nathaniel Borenstein

  Writing, Baghdad, Ethics

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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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• Testing by itself does not improve software quality. Test results are an indicator of quality, but in and of themselves, they don't improve it. Trying to improve software quality by increasing the amount of testing is like trying to lose weight by weighing yourself more often. What you eat before you step onto the scale determines how much you will weigh, and the software development techniques you use determine how many errors testing will find. If you want to lose weight, don't buy a new scale; change your diet. If you want to improve your software, don't test more; develop better.

  Steve McConnell

  Errors, Code Quality, Simplicity

  Steve McConnell (2004). “Code Complete”, p.501, Pearson Education

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• Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

  Rick Cook

  Winning, Technology, Race

  "The Wizardry Compiled". Book by Rick Cook, 1989.

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• Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.

  Alan Kay

  Funny Inspirational, Integrity, Technology

  "A Conversation with Alan Kay: Big talk with the creator of Smalltalk — and much more". Interview with Stuart Feldman in ACM Queue, Volume 2, issue 9, queue.acm.org. December 27, 2004.

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• The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich may find hard to pay.

  Tony Hoare

  Simplicity, Reliability, May

  "The Emperor's Old Clothes". Tony Hoare's lecture at the 1980 ACM Turing Award in Nashville, Tennessee; "Communications of the ACM", Volume 24, Issue 2, dl.acm.org. February 1981.

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• Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering. When you finally get done and get to appreciate what you have done it is like a part of yourself that you've put together. I think a lot of the people here feel that way.

  Bill Gates

  Thinking, Engineering, People

  "MS-DOS Turns 30: PCMag's Original Interview With Bill Gates". Interview with David Bunnel, in.pcmag.com. February 1, 1982.

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

  Niklaus Wirth

  People, Causes, Admiration

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

  Tony Hoare

  Roots, Evil, Simplicity

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• Software is like sex: It's better when it's free.

  Linus Torvalds

  Sex, Technology, Linux

  Attributed to Torvalds at 1996 FSF conference,

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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 most important single aspect of software development is to be clear about what you are trying to build.

  Bjarne Stroustrup

  Learning, Simplicity, Important

  Bjarne Stroustrup (2000). “The C++ Programming Language”, Addison-Wesley Professional

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• Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the second law of thermodynamics; i.e. it always increases.

  Norman Ralph Augustine

  Science, Law, Literature

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• People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

  Alan Kay

  Technology, People, Serious

  Creative Think talk, www.folklore.org. July 20, 1982.

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• That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.

  Larry Niven

  Hate, Technology, Thinking

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• Software Engineering is that part of Computer Science which is too difficult for the Computer Scientist.

  Friedrich L. Bauer

  Engineering, Computer, Scientist

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