Competitive/Collaborative Programming Class

ICPC Computer Programming Contest Prep

Problem Solving in Computer Science

Fall 2021 -- CSC 2700 Section 01 (1206 Patrick Taylor, 6:00 PM - 7:50 PM)

The big optimizations come from refining the high-level design, not the individual routines.
--Steve McConnell
It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good.
--Hary Chapin
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
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
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree.
--Professor W.
[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
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
--John Woods
College is a waystation - the last convenience store on the road to life-long responsibility.
--Dennis Miller
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
Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
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
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic
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
Happiness should be a function without any parameters.
--Pranshu Midha
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
--Donald Knuth
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
--Edsger W. Dijkstra
Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively
--Dalai Lama XIV
There is nothing good or bad about knowledge itself; morality lies in the application of knowledge.
--Jon Erickson
The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.
--C.A.R. Hoare
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
--Kent Beck
Without requirements and design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file.
--Louis Srygley
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
--Alan Kay
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi
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
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