Competitive/Collaborative Programming Class

ICPC Computer Programming Contest Prep

Problem Solving in Computer Science

Fall 2023 -- CSC 2700 Section 01 (2317 Patrick Taylor, 6:00 PM - 7:50 PM)



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Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.
--Chris Pine
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
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.
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi
The big optimizations come from refining the high-level design, not the individual routines.
--Steve McConnell
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
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
[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
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.
--Larry Niven
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
College is a waystation - the last convenience store on the road to life-long responsibility.
--Dennis Miller
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
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
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
There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
--Edsger W. Dijkstra
There is nothing good or bad about knowledge itself; morality lies in the application of knowledge.
--Jon Erickson
What is a university/college when the students lose interest?
--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
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
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
If the steps become to big, they become walls...
--Herb Sutter
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
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Alan Perlis
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
--John Woods