What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.
--Chris Pine
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
There is nothing good or bad about knowledge itself; morality lies in the application of knowledge.
--Jon Erickson
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
The real nightmare, worse than the one in which the Big Machine wants to kill you, is the one in which it sees you as irrelevant, or not even as a discrete thing to know.
--Benjamin H Bratton
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Alan Perlis
It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good.
--Hary Chapin
Learning the art of programming, like most other disciplines, consists of first learning the rules and then learning when to break them.
--Joshua Bloch
Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree.
--Professor W.
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
--Alan Kay
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points
--Alan Kay
The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.
--perldoc perl
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
--Donald Knuth
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
--Alan Kay
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic
If the steps become to big, they become walls...
--Herb Sutter
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
The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.
--C.A.R. Hoare
What is a university/college when the students lose interest?
--Isaac Traxler
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
--Kent Beck
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
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