The real nightmare, worse than the one in which the Big Machine wants to kill you, is the one in which it sees you as irrelevant, or not even as a discrete thing to know.
--Benjamin H Bratton
There is nothing good or bad about knowledge itself; morality lies in the application of knowledge.
--Jon Erickson
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
--Alan Kay
Programming is the art of thinking really hard about how to avoid having to think really hard.
--unknown
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
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
Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
[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
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Nartin Fowler
If the steps become to big, they become walls...
--Herb Sutter
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
Twenty hours at the keyboard can save you two hours of planning.
--Isaac Traxler
A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points
--Alan Kay
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good.
--Hary Chapin
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
Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree.
--Professor W.
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
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic