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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...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
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
--Alan Kay
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic
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
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
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard
Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
Think twice, code once.
--Waseem Latif
Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively
--Dalai Lama XIV
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
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Nartin Fowler
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
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
Without requirements and design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file.
--Louis Srygley
There is nothing good or bad about knowledge itself; morality lies in the application of knowledge.
--Jon Erickson
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.
Programming is the art of thinking really hard about how to avoid having to think really hard.
--unknown
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
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
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
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
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
--Alan Kay