Competitive/Collaborative Programming Class

[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
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
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
The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.
--perldoc perl
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
--Alan Kay
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Nartin Fowler
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree.
--Professor W.
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
That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.
--Larry Niven
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
Without requirements and design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file.
--Louis Srygley
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
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic
College is a waystation - the last convenience store on the road to life-long responsibility.
--Dennis Miller
Some of the best programming is done on paper, really. Putting it into the computer is just a minor detail.
--Max Kanat-Alexander
So if an algorithm is an idealized recipe, a program is the detailed set of instructions for a cooking robot preparing a month of meals for an army while under enemy attack
--Kernighan Brian
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard