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
The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.
--perldoc perl
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
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
--John Woods
Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code. It lets you accrete programs as a series of patches.
--Paul Graham
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
--Kent Beck
College is a waystation - the last convenience store on the road to life-long responsibility.
--Dennis Miller
[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
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
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Nartin Fowler
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
Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively
--Dalai Lama XIV
I'm a programmer. I like programming. And the best way I've found to have a positive impact on code is to write it.
--Robert C. Martin
But while you can always write 'spaghetti code' in a procedural language, object-oriented languages used poorly can add meatballs to your spaghetti.
--Andrew Hunt
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
--Alan Kay
A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points
--Alan Kay
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic
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
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
--Alan Kay
Happiness should be a function without any parameters.
--Pranshu Midha