Brian Kernighan Quotes

• Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.

  Brian Kernighan

  Inspirational, Funny, Smart

  93 Copy quote

• Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.

  Brian Kernighan

  Technology, Essence, Simplicity

  Brian W. Kernighan (1981). “Software Tools in Pascal”, Addison-Wesley Professional

  36 Copy quote

• The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements.

  Brian Kernighan

  Tools, Debugging, Programming

  "Unix for Beginners". Paper by Brian Kernighan, 1979.

  27 Copy quote

• Do what you think is interesting, do something that you think is fun and worthwhile, because otherwise you won't do it well anyway.

  Brian Kernighan

  Fun, Thinking, Interesting

  Interview with Mihai Budiu, www.cs.cmu.edu. July 2000.

  52 Copy quote

• 90% of the functionality delivered now is better than 100% delivered never.

  Brian Kernighan

  Functionality

  22 Copy quote

• Another effective [debugging] technique is to explain your code to someone else. This will often cause you to explain the bug to yourself. Sometimes it takes no more than a few sentences, followed by an embarrassed "Never mind, I see what's wrong. Sorry to bother you." This works remarkably well; you can even use non-programmers as listeners. One university computer center kept a teddy bear near the help desk. Students with mysterious bugs were required to explain them to the bear before they could speak to a human counselor.

  Brian Kernighan

  Sorry, Learning, Mind

  25 Copy quote

• C is a razor-sharp tool, with which one can create an elegant and efficient program or a bloody mess.

  Brian Kernighan

  Tools, Razors, Program

  Brian W. Kernighan, Rob Pike (1999). “The Practice of Programming”, p.71, Addison-Wesley Professional

  18 Copy quote

• Believe the terrain, not the map

  Brian Kernighan

  Believe, Maps, Terrain

  17 Copy quote

• Don't document bad code - rewrite it.

  Brian Kernighan

  Code Quality, Programming, Software Engineering

  18 Copy quote

• ... it is a fundamental principle of testing that you must know in advance the answer each test case is supposed to produce. If you don't, you are not testing; you are experimenting.

  Brian Kernighan

  Principles, Fundamentals, Answers

  18 Copy quote

• Mechanical rules are never a substitute for clarity of thought.

  Brian Kernighan

  Clarity, Clarity Of Thought, Substitutes

  Brian W. Kernighan (1976). “Software Tools”, Addison-Wesley Professional

  12 Copy quote

• Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs.

  Brian Kernighan

  Class, Debugging, Bugs

  15 Copy quote

• An effective way to test code is to exercise it at its natural boundaries

  Brian Kernighan

  Exercise, Tests, Way

  8 Copy quote

• If you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?

  Brian Kernighan

  Clever, Writing, Debugging

  Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger (1978). “The Elements of Programming Style”, Computing McGraw-Hill

  13 Copy quote

• If you had done something twice, you are likely to do it again.

  Brian Kernighan

  Done, Mathematics, Mathematical

  Brian W. Kernighan, Rob Pike (1984). “The UNIX Programming Environment”, Prentice Hall

  14 Copy quote

• Trying to outsmart a compiler defeats much of the purpose of using one.

  Brian Kernighan

  Trying, Purpose, Defeat

  Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger (1978). “The Elements of Programming Style”, Computing McGraw-Hill

  8 Copy quote

• As we said in the preface to the first edition, C "wears well as one's experience with it grows." With a decade more experience, we still feel that way.

  Brian Kernighan

  Way, Firsts, Language

  Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie (1988). “C Programming Language”, p.13, Prentice Hall

  12 Copy quote

• Trivia rarely affect efficiency. Are all the machinations worth it, when their primary effect is to make the code less readable?

  Brian Kernighan

  Statistics, Trivia, Efficiency

  Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger (1978). “The Elements of Programming Style”, Computing McGraw-Hill

  11 Copy quote

• Get the weirdnesses into the data where you can manipulate them easily, and the regularity into the code because regular code is a lot easier to work with

  Brian Kernighan

  Data, Weirdness, Easier

  8 Copy quote

• Some compilers allow a check during execution that subscripts do not exceed array dimensions. This is a help, but not sufficient. First, many programmers do not use such compilers because They're not efficient. (Presumably, this means that it is vital to get the wrong answers quickly.)

  Brian Kernighan

  Mean, Firsts, Dimensions

  Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger (1978). “The Elements of Programming Style”, Computing McGraw-Hill

  9 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Dennis Ritchie

Rob Pike

Ken Thompson

P. J. Plauger

Bjarne Stroustrup

Donald Knuth

James Gosling

Linus Torvalds