Competitive/Collaborative Programming Class

ICPC Computer Programming Contest Prep

Problem Solving in Computer Science

Fall 2022 -- CSC 2700 Section 01 (1216 Patrick Taylor, 6:00 PM - 7:50 PM)



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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
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
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.
--C.A.R. Hoare
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
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
The issue of finding the best possible answer or achieving maximum efficiency usually arises in industry only after serious performance or legal troubles.
--Steven S. Skiena
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
The big optimizations come from refining the high-level design, not the individual routines.
--Steve McConnell
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
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
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
Think twice, code once.
--Waseem Latif
...I’m not saying simple code takes less time to write. You’d think it would since you end up with less total code, but a good solution isn’t an accretion of code, it’s a distillation of it.
--Robert Nystrom
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
--Kent Beck
College is a waystation - the last convenience store on the road to life-long responsibility.
--Dennis Miller
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard
There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
Some of the best programming is done on paper, really. Putting it into the computer is just a minor detail.
--Max Kanat-Alexander
Twenty hours at the keyboard can save you two hours of planning.
--Isaac Traxler
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
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
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
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
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code. It lets you accrete programs as a series of patches.
--Paul Graham