Competitive/Collaborative Programming Class

ICPC Computer Programming Contest Prep

Problem Solving in Computer Science

Fall 2024 -- CSC 2700 Section 01
1720 Business Education North Wing, 6:00 PM - 7:50 PM



Class Home




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
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.
--perldoc perl
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
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 change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points
--Alan Kay
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
--Alan Kay
Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively
--Dalai Lama XIV
There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
College is a waystation - the last convenience store on the road to life-long responsibility.
--Dennis Miller
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Alan Perlis
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
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
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
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Nartin Fowler
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
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard
Along every step of our journey through life, our mind is being programmed. If we are not programming it ourselves, someone else is doing it to us.
--Joseph Rain
That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.
--Larry Niven
Learning the art of programming, like most other disciplines, consists of first learning the rules and then learning when to break them.
--Joshua Bloch
Some of the best programming is done on paper, really. Putting it into the computer is just a minor detail.
--Max Kanat-Alexander
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
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