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 three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.
--perldoc perl
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
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
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
--John Woods
Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.
--Chris Pine
Think twice, code once.
--Waseem Latif
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
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
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
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
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist
--Pablo Picasso
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Alan Perlis
Programming is the art of thinking really hard about how to avoid having to think really hard.
--unknown
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
There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree.
--Professor W.
There is nothing good or bad about knowledge itself; morality lies in the application of knowledge.
--Jon Erickson
Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code. It lets you accrete programs as a series of patches.
--Paul Graham
Happiness should be a function without any parameters.
--Pranshu Midha
If the steps become to big, they become walls...
--Herb Sutter
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
--Alan Kay