Computer Programming Quotes - Page 5

• An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher.

  John W. Gardner

  Education, Teacher, Philosopher

  Dr. John W. Gardner (2015). “Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too?”, p.97, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• The value of a prototype is in the education it gives you, not in the code itself.

  Amari Cooper

  Learning, Giving, Programming

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• The cost of adding a feature isn't just the time it takes to code it. The cost also includes the addition of an obstacle to future expansion. ... The trick is to pick the features that don't fight each other.

  John Carmack

  Fighting, Simplicity, Expansion

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• The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it's too late.

  Seymour Cray

  Technology, Too Late, Coders

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• At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer, you will find at least two human errors, one of which is the error of blaming it on the computer.

  Tom Gilb

  Learning, Errors, Two

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  The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Inspiring, Education, Wisdom

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Good code is its own best documentation. As you're about to add a comment, ask yourself, "How can I improve the code so that this comment isn't needed?" Improve the code and then document it to make it even clearer.

  Steve McConnell

  Funny Inspirational, Documentation, Add

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• That's what's cool about working with computers. They don't argue, they remember everything, and they don't drink all your beer.

  Paul Leary

  Beer, Technology, Remembers Everything

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• As a rule, software systems do not work well until they have been used, and have failed repeatedly, in real applications.

  David Parnas

  Real, Learning, Insomnia

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• Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity.

  David Gelernter

  Technology, Simplicity, Important

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• There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

  Alan Perlis

  Writing, Errors, Two

  "Epigrams on Programming". ACM "SIGPLAN" Notices 17 (9), (pp. 7-13), September 1982.

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• If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution.

  Robert Sewell

  Java, Garbage, Execution

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• Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.

  Donald Knuth

  Funny Inspirational, Reading, Following Instructions

  Donald Ervin Knuth (1984). “The texbook”, Addison-Wesley Professional

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• Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming; feedback is the treatment.

  Kent Beck

  Technology, Optimism, Hazards

  Kent Beck (2000). “Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change”, p.31, Addison-Wesley Professional

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• Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.

  Larry Wall

  Funny, Technology, Three

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• 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

  Mistake, Technology, Coders

  "The Design and Use of the EDSAC". Lecture delivered at the Digital Computer Museum, September 23, 1979.

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• Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more 'user-friendly'... Their best approach so far has been to take all the old brochures and stamp the words 'user-friendly' on the cover.

  Bill Gates

  Technology, Trying, Friendly

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• The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry.

  Henry Petroski

  Technology, Achievement, Gains

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• Learning to code makes kids feel empowered, creative, and confident. If we want our young women to retain these traits into adulthood, a great option is to expose them to computer programming in their youth.

  Susan Wojcicki

  Kids, Creative, Want

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• Imagination is more important than knowledge.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Positive, Leadership

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.32, St. Martin's Press

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  Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Funny, Witty

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• Premature optimization is the root of all evil in programming.

  Tony Hoare

  Roots, Evil, Simplicity

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• When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Beauty, Creativity, Thinking

  "The Universal Book of Mathematics". Book by David Darling, p. 34, November 8, 2004.

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• Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.

  Alan Kay

  Funny Inspirational, Integrity, Technology

  "A Conversation with Alan Kay: Big talk with the creator of Smalltalk — and much more". Interview with Stuart Feldman in ACM Queue, Volume 2, issue 9, queue.acm.org. December 27, 2004.

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• The unavoidable price of reliability is simplicity.

  Tony Hoare

  Simplicity, Reliability, Programming

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