Competitive/Collaborative Programming Class

ICPC Computer Programming Contest Prep

Problem Solving in Computer Science

Spring 2023 -- CSC 2700 Section 01 (1216 Patrick Taylor, 6:30 PM - 8:20 PM)



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If the steps become to big, they become walls...
--Herb Sutter
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
--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
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
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
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
--John Woods
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--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
Learning the art of programming, like most other disciplines, consists of first learning the rules and then learning when to break them.
--Joshua Bloch
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree.
--Professor W.
...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
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
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
That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.
--Larry Niven
Happiness should be a function without any parameters.
--Pranshu Midha
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
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
--Alan Kay
Our consciousness is programmed. We see things a certain way from a young age - we're programmed to keep doing them that way. Then you have to spend adulthood learning how to overcome it, to read out the programs. Try to create. I want to tell people to create. Just start by creating your day. Then create your life.
--Prince
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi
College is a waystation - the last convenience store on the road to life-long responsibility.
--Dennis Miller