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.
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
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
Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
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
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
Our consciousness is programmed. We see things a certain way from a young age - we're programmed to keep doing them that way. Then you have to spend adulthood learning how to overcome it, to read out the programs. Try to create. I want to tell people to create. Just start by creating your day. Then create your life.
--Prince
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
Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist
--Pablo Picasso
Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.
--Chris Pine
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
--John Woods
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively
--Dalai Lama XIV
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
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
--Donald Knuth
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
Some of the best programming is done on paper, really. Putting it into the computer is just a minor detail.
--Max Kanat-Alexander
Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree.
--Professor W.
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Nartin Fowler
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
Learning the art of programming, like most other disciplines, consists of first learning the rules and then learning when to break them.
--Joshua Bloch
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
--Kent Beck
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
--Alan Kay
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
Along every step of our journey through life, our mind is being programmed. If we are not programming it ourselves, someone else is doing it to us.
--Joseph Rain
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
--Alan Kay
The big optimizations come from refining the high-level design, not the individual routines.
--Steve McConnell
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
--Edsger W. Dijkstra
Without requirements and design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file.
--Louis Srygley
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
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
[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
College is a waystation - the last convenience store on the road to life-long responsibility.
--Dennis Miller
There is nothing good or bad about knowledge itself; morality lies in the application of knowledge.
--Jon Erickson
Twenty hours at the keyboard can save you two hours of planning.
--Isaac Traxler
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi
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
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
The really good programmers spend a lot of time programming. I haven’t seen very good programmers who don’t spend a lot of time programming. If I don’t program for two or three days, I need to do it. And you get better at it—you get quicker at it. The side effect of writing all this other stuff is that when you get to doing ordinary problems, you can do them very quickly.
--Joe Armstrong
Programming is the art of thinking really hard about how to avoid having to think really hard.
--unknown
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Alan Perlis
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