There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
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
The big optimizations come from refining the high-level design, not the individual routines.
--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
Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.
--Chris Pine
[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
Twenty hours at the keyboard can save you two hours of planning.
--Isaac Traxler
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
--John Woods
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
College is a waystation - the last convenience store on the road to life-long responsibility.
--Dennis Miller
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
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
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
Without requirements and design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file.
--Louis Srygley
Learning the art of programming, like most other disciplines, consists of first learning the rules and then learning when to break them.
--Joshua Bloch
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard
Think twice, code once.
--Waseem Latif
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
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
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
--Donald Knuth
It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good.
--Hary Chapin
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi
That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.
--Larry Niven
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
--Kent Beck
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Alan Perlis
The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.
--C.A.R. Hoare
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay