Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic
Think twice, code once.
--Waseem Latif
Some of the best programming is done on paper, really. Putting it into the computer is just a minor detail.
--Max Kanat-Alexander
Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code. It lets you accrete programs as a series of patches.
--Paul Graham
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 is the art of thinking really hard about how to avoid having to think really hard.
--unknown
...I’m not saying simple code takes less time to write. You’d think it would since you end up with less total code, but a good solution isn’t an accretion of code, it’s a distillation of it.
--Robert Nystrom
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
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
Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
Twenty hours at the keyboard can save you two hours of planning.
--Isaac Traxler
The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.
--C.A.R. Hoare
Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively
--Dalai Lama XIV
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Alan Perlis
Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.
--Chris Pine
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
A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points
--Alan Kay
Einstein repeatedly argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.
--Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
Learning the art of programming, like most other disciplines, consists of first learning the rules and then learning when to break them.
--Joshua Bloch
It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good.
--Hary Chapin
Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree.
--Professor W.
If the steps become to big, they become walls...
--Herb Sutter
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist
--Pablo Picasso