There is nothing good or bad about knowledge itself; morality lies in the application of knowledge.
--Jon Erickson
[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
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
--Kent Beck
The personal computer isn't "personal" because it's small and portable and yours to own. It's "personal" because you pour yourself into it - your thoughts, your programming.
--Audrey Watters
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
Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code. It lets you accrete programs as a series of patches.
--Paul Graham
College is a waystation - the last convenience store on the road to life-long responsibility.
--Dennis Miller
Think twice, code once.
--Waseem Latif
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Alan Perlis
One knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?
--Brian Kernighan
Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.
--Chris Pine
It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good.
--Hary Chapin
Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively
--Dalai Lama XIV
A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points
--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
Managers of programming projects aren’t always aware that certain programming issues are matters of religion. If you’re a manager and you try to require compliance with certain programming practices, you’re inviting your programmers’ ire. Here’s a list of religious issues:
■ Programming language
■ Indentation style
■ Placing of braces
■ Choice of IDE
■ Commenting style
■ Efficiency vs. readability tradeoffs
■ Choice of methodology—for example, Scrum vs. Extreme Programming vs. evolutionary delivery ■ Programming utilities
■ Naming conventions
■ Use of gotos
■ Use of global variables
■ Measurements, especially productivity measures such as lines of code per day
--Steve McConnell
Twenty hours at the keyboard can save you two hours of planning.
--Isaac Traxler
Programming is the art of thinking really hard about how to avoid having to think really hard.
--unknown
The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.
--C.A.R. Hoare
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
--Alan Kay
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
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
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.
--Larry Niven
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist
--Pablo Picasso
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
--Donald Knuth