PROGRAMMING/SOFTWARE

Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.
Kernigan

BASIC is to computer programming as QWERTY is to typing.
Seymour Papert

"First learn computer science and all the theory. Next develop a programming style. Then forget all that and just hack."
George Carrette

"Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature."
Kulawiec

"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
C.A.R. Hoare

"Fast, fat computers breed slow, lazy programmers."
Robert Hummel

"You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing viability of Fortran."
Alan Perlis

"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."
Rich Cook

"The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language."
D. E. Knuth

"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense."
Professor Edsger Dijkstra

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
Professor Edsger Dijkstra

"As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs."
Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Robert A. Heinlein

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.
Rich Cook

"Programming just with goto's is like swatting flies with a sledgehammer."
Unknown

"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
Donald Knuth

"There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one works."
Unknown

"A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God."
Unknown

"It's hard to make a program foolproof because fools are so ingenious."
Unknown

"There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad programs."
Unknown

"If debugging is the art of removing bugs, then programming must be the art of inserting them."
Unknown

Real Programmers don't write in COBOL. COBOL is for wimpy applications programmers.
Real Programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies.
Real Programmers don't write in PASCAL, or BLISS, or ADA, or any of those pinko computer science languages. Strong typing is for people with weak memories.
Real Programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
Real Programmers don't write specs -- users should consider themselves lucky to get any programs at all and take what they get.
Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in the middle of the machine room.