What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
With software there are only two possibilites: either the users control the programme or the programme controls the users. If the programme controls the users, and the developer controls the programme, then the programme is an instrument of unjust power.
--Richard Stallman
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist
--Pablo Picasso
There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
The big optimizations come from refining the high-level design, not the individual routines.
--Steve McConnell
College is a waystation - the last convenience store on the road to life-long responsibility.
--Dennis Miller
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard
Our consciousness is programmed. We see things a certain way from a young age - we're programmed to keep doing them that way. Then you have to spend adulthood learning how to overcome it, to read out the programs. Try to create. I want to tell people to create. Just start by creating your day. Then create your life.
--Prince
The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.
--C.A.R. Hoare
[On identifying talented programmers] It’s just enthusiasm. You ask them what’s the most interesting program they worked on. And then you get them to describe it and its algorithms and what’s going on. If they can’t withstand my questioning on their program, then they’re not good. I’m asking them to describe something they’ve done that they’ve spent blood on. I’ve never met anybody who really did spend blood on something who wasn’t eager to describe what they’ve done and how they did it and why. I let them pick the subject. I don’t pick the subject, so I’m the amateur and they’re the professional in this subject. If they can’t stand an amateur asking them questions about their profession, then they don’t belong.
--Ken Thompson
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
Without requirements and design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file.
--Louis Srygley
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi
You are not reading this book because a teacher assigned it to you, you are reading it because you have a desire to learn, and wanting to learn is the biggest advantage you can have.
--Cory Althoff
It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?
--Alan J. Perlis
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
--Edsger W. Dijkstra
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
--John Woods
The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong without comment.
--Theodore H. White
Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively
--Dalai Lama XIV
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
--Alan Kay
Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.
--Chris Pine
Programming is the art of thinking really hard about how to avoid having to think really hard.
--unknown
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler