A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Alan Perlis
[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
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
There is nothing good or bad about knowledge itself; morality lies in the application of knowledge.
--Jon Erickson
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
--Kent Beck
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
--Alan Kay
Happiness should be a function without any parameters.
--Pranshu Midha
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
College is a waystation - the last convenience store on the road to life-long responsibility.
--Dennis Miller
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
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
--John Woods
A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points
--Alan Kay
Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
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
The big optimizations come from refining the high-level design, not the individual routines.
--Steve McConnell
Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
--Edsger W. Dijkstra
If the steps become to big, they become walls...
--Herb Sutter
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
Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code. It lets you accrete programs as a series of patches.
--Paul Graham
What is a university/college when the students lose interest?
--Isaac Traxler
Learning the art of programming, like most other disciplines, consists of first learning the rules and then learning when to break them.
--Joshua Bloch
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
--Donald Knuth
It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good.
--Hary Chapin
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
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
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
There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi