Competitive/Collaborative Programming Class

A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Alan Perlis
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist
--Pablo Picasso
Programming is the art of thinking really hard about how to avoid having to think really hard.
--unknown
Without requirements and design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file.
--Louis Srygley
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
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.
The big optimizations come from refining the high-level design, not the individual routines.
--Steve McConnell
What is a university/college when the students lose interest?
--Isaac Traxler
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
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
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
--Kent Beck
[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
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
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's got to be the going not the getting there that's good.
--Hary Chapin
Think twice, code once.
--Waseem Latif
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
--Donald Knuth
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
Twenty hours at the keyboard can save you two hours of planning.
--Isaac Traxler
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi
Happiness should be a function without any parameters.
--Pranshu Midha
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
--Alan Kay
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
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
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
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