Niklaus Wirth Quotes

Quotes about:

Design Language Quality

C++ is an insult to the human brain

Niklaus Wirth

Brain, Insult, Human Brain

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But quality of work can be expected only through personal satisfaction, dedication and enjoyment. In our profession, precision and perfection are not a dispensable luxury, but a simple necessity.

Niklaus Wirth

Work, Simple, Dedication

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A good designer must rely on experience, on precise, logic thinking; and on pedantic exactness. No magic will do.

Niklaus Wirth

Death, Thinking, Design

Interview with Carlo Pescio, www.eptacom.net. June 1997.

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The belief that complex systems require armies of designers and programmers is wrong. A system that is not understood in its entirety, or at least to a significant degree of detail by a single individual, should probably not be built.

Niklaus Wirth

Army, Degrees, Details

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Complexity has and will maintain a strong fascination for many people. It is true that we live in a complex world and strive to solve inherently complex problems, which often do require complex mechanisms. However, this should not diminish our desire for elegant solutions, which convince by their clarity and effectiveness. Simple, elegant solutions are more effective, but they are harder to find than complex ones, and they require more time, which we too often believe to be unaffordable

Niklaus Wirth

Strong, Believe, Learning

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Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling -- the incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration.

Niklaus Wirth

People, Causes, Admiration

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A primary cause of complexity is that software vendors uncritically adopt almost any feature that users want.

Niklaus Wirth

Want, Causes, Vendors

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Whereas Europeans generally pronounce my name the right way ('Ni-klows Wirt'), Americans invariably mangle it into 'Nick-les Worth'. This is to say that Europeans call me by name, but Americans call me by value.

Niklaus Wirth

Names, Way, Call Me

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In the practical world of computing, it is rather uncommon that a program, once it performs correctly and satisfactorily, remains unchanged forever.

Niklaus Wirth

Forever, World, Computer

"Program Development by Stepwise Refinement". Communications of the ACM, 14 (4), April 1971.

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Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster.

Niklaus Wirth

Faster, Software, Hardware

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Time pressure gradually corrupts an engineer's standard of quality and perfection. It has a detrimental effect on people as well as products

Niklaus Wirth

Code Quality, People, Perfection

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Prolific programmers contribute to certain disaster.

Niklaus Wirth

Disaster, Programming, Certain

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Programming is usually taught by examples.

Niklaus Wirth

Example, Taught, Programming

"Program Development by Stepwise Refinement". Communications of the ACM 14 (4): pp. 221-227, April 1971.

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Program construction consists of a sequence of refinement steps.

Niklaus Wirth

Steps, Construction, Program

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Professors typically spend their time in meetings about planning, policy, proposals, fund-raising, consulting, interviewing, traveling, and so forth, but spend relatively little time at their drawing boards. As a result, they lose touch with the substance of their rapidly developing subject. They lose the ability to design; they lose sight of what is essential; and they resign themselves to teach academically challenging puzzles.

Niklaus Wirth

Sight, Drawing, Design

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The idea that one might derive satisfaction from his or her successful work, because that work is ingenious, beautiful, or just pleasing, has become ridiculed.

Niklaus Wirth

Beautiful, Work, Successful

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Many people tend to look at programming styles and languages like religions: if you belong to one, you cannot belong to others. But this analogy is another fallacy.

Niklaus Wirth

People, Style, Looks

"The Awakening of Global Consciousness: A Guide to Self-Realization and Spirituality". Book by Jawara D. King, 2010.

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Good engineering is characterized by gradual, stepwise refinement of products that yields increased performance under given constraints and with given resources.

Niklaus Wirth

Yield, Engineering, Resources

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Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster. (Or, sometimes known by] Grove [the head of Intel] giveth and Gates [the head of Microsoft] taketh away.)

Niklaus Wirth

Learning, Microsoft, Sometimes

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Experience shows that the success of a programming course critically depends on the choice of these examples.

Niklaus Wirth

Choices, Experience, Example

"Program Development by Stepwise Refinement". Communications of the ACM 14 (4), April 1971.

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Programs should be written and polished until they acquire publication quality.

Niklaus Wirth

Code Quality, Program, Should

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Our ultimate goal is extensible programming. By this, we mean the construction of hierarchies of modules, each module adding new functionality to the system.

Niklaus Wirth

Mean, Goal, Hierarchy

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During the process of stepwise refinement, a notation which is natural to the problem in hand should be used as long as possible.

Niklaus Wirth

Hands, Long, Problem

"Program Development by Stepwise Refinement". Communications of the ACM 14 (4), April 1971.

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I have never designed a language for its own sake.

Niklaus Wirth

Sake, Language

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Usually its users discover sooner or later that their program does not deliver all the desired results, or worse, that the results requested were not the ones really needed.

Niklaus Wirth

Doe, Program, Results

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Born: February 15, 1934
Occupation: Computer Scientist
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