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)



Class Home




First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
--Alan Kay
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.
--Chris Pine
It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good.
--Hary Chapin
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code. It lets you accrete programs as a series of patches.
--Paul Graham
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic
Learning the art of programming, like most other disciplines, consists of first learning the rules and then learning when to break them.
--Joshua Bloch
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
The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.
--C.A.R. Hoare
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
--Donald Knuth
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 university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi
There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
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
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
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 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
[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
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
Happiness should be a function without any parameters.
--Pranshu Midha
Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
--Edsger W. Dijkstra
...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