There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
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
Programming is the art of thinking really hard about how to avoid having to think really hard.
--unknown
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.
Twenty hours at the keyboard can save you two hours of planning.
--Isaac Traxler
First solve the problem. Then, write the code.
--Waseem Latif
Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code. It lets you accrete programs as a series of patches.
--Paul Graham
'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard
Think twice, code once.
--Waseem Latif
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi
Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
...I’m not saying simple code takes less time to write. You’d think it would since you end up with less total code, but a good solution isn’t an accretion of code, it’s a distillation of it.
--Robert Nystrom
Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree.
--Professor W.
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
The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.
--perldoc perl
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic
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
But while you can always write 'spaghetti code' in a procedural language, object-oriented languages used poorly can add meatballs to your spaghetti.
--Andrew Hunt
A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points
--Alan Kay
If the steps become to big, they become walls...
--Herb Sutter
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
--Alan Kay
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
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
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
Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
--Edsger W. Dijkstra
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
--John Woods
Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
Without requirements and design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file.
--Louis Srygley
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.
--C.A.R. Hoare
The big optimizations come from refining the high-level design, not the individual routines.
--Steve McConnell