Competitive/Collaborative Programming Class

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
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Nartin Fowler
Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
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
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
--Alan Kay
Programming is the art of thinking really hard about how to avoid having to think really hard.
--unknown
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
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
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.
--perldoc perl
What is a university/college when the students lose interest?
--Isaac Traxler
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
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
--Donald Knuth
[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
Some of the best programming is done on paper, really. Putting it into the computer is just a minor detail.
--Max Kanat-Alexander
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