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
[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
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
So if an algorithm is an idealized recipe, a program is the detailed set of instructions for a cooking robot preparing a month of meals for an army while under enemy attack
--Kernighan Brian
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.
--Larry Niven
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic
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.
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
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
Think twice, code once.
--Waseem Latif
If the steps become to big, they become walls...
--Herb Sutter
Without requirements and design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file.
--Louis Srygley
The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.
--C.A.R. Hoare
Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.
--Chris Pine
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
Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
--Edsger W. Dijkstra
Twenty hours at the keyboard can save you two hours of planning.
--Isaac Traxler
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
--Alan Kay
It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good.
--Hary Chapin
The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.
--perldoc perl