Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
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
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
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
Happiness should be a function without any parameters.
--Pranshu Midha
Without requirements and design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file.
--Louis Srygley
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard
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
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
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
When they first built the University of California at Irvine they just put the buildings in. They did not put any sidewalks, they just planted grass. The next year, they came back and put the sidewalks where the trails were in the grass. Perl is just that kind of language. It is not designed from first principles. Perl is those sidewalks in the grass.
--Larry Wall
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
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
Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.
--Larry Niven
The big optimizations come from refining the high-level design, not the individual routines.
--Steve McConnell
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
--John Woods
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist
--Pablo Picasso
Think twice, code once.
--Waseem Latif
Programming is the art of thinking really hard about how to avoid having to think really hard.
--unknown
There is nothing good or bad about knowledge itself; morality lies in the application of knowledge.
--Jon Erickson
Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree.
--Professor W.
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.
--perldoc perl
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good.
--Hary Chapin
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
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
--Kent Beck
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
--Alan Kay
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points
--Alan Kay
[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
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