Computer Science Quotes - Page 3

• But biology and computer science - life and computation - are related. I am confident that at their interface great discoveries await those who seek them.

  Leonard Adleman

  Discovery, Computer, Biology

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• One finds limits by pushing them.

  Herbert Simon

  Motivational, Inspiring, Business

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• When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Beauty, Beautiful, Niece

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• Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random

  Donald Knuth

  Numbers, Method, Should

  Donald E. Knuth (2014). “Art of Computer Programming, Volume 2: Seminumerical Algorithms”, p.25, Addison-Wesley Professional

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• Software is a reflection of our own mind. And as our software improves it will not only take on the patterns of our minds more closely, but it will also pick up the energy of our minds; in other words, I think that software is alive.

  Frederick Lenz

  Science, Reflection, Thinking

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• For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless. And then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match.

  Bill Bryson

  Stupid, Smart, Technology

  "Notes from a Big Country" / "I'm a Stranger Here Myself", Book by Bill Bryson, 1998.

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• Computer science is to biology what calculus is to physics. It's the natural mathematical technique that best maps the character of the subject.

  Harold Morowitz

  Learning, Character, Technique

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• Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.

  Hal Abelson

  Trust, Technology, People

  "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" by Gerald Jay Sussman and Hal Abelson, (Preface to the first edition), 1979.

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• When debugging, novices insert corrective code; experts remove defective code.

  Richard E. Pattis

  Quality, Experts, Debugging

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• The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.

  William C. Brown

  Goal, Lasts, Computer

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• 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

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• A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.

  Alan Perlis

  Learning, Thinking, Knowing

  "Epigrams on Programming". ACM SIGPLAN Notices 17 (9), pp. 7-13, pu.inf.uni-tuebingen.de. September 1982.

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• Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

  Aldous Huxley

  Inspirational, Motivational, Education

  Proper Studies "A Note on Dogma" (1927)

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• C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off.

  Bjarne Stroustrup

  Funny, Witty, Humorous

  Bjarne Stroustrup's FAQ: Did you really say that?, www.stroustrup.com.

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• The best way to predict the future is to study the past, or prognosticate.

  Robert Kiyosaki

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  Twitter post from Jan 30, 2017

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• Computer science really involves the same mindset, particularly artificial intelligence.

  Frederick Lenz

  Science, Computer, Mindset

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• A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable.

  Leslie Lamport

  Failure, Technology, Computer

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• If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls Royce would today cost $100 and get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside.

  Robert X. Cringely

  Funny, Humor, Technology

  "Noted from the field". "InfoWorld Magazine", Volume 11, Number 10, March 6, 1989.

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• I was lucky to get into computers when it was a very young and idealistic industry. There weren't many degrees offered in computer science, so people in computers were brilliant people from mathematics, physics, music, zoology, whatever. They loved it, and no one was really in it for the money.

  Steve Jobs

  People, Degrees, Lucky

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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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• When people think about computer science, they imagine people with pocket protectors and thick glasses who code all night.

  Marissa Mayer

  Night, Thinking, Glasses

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• There can be infinite uses of the computer and of new age technology, but if teachers themselves are not able to bring it into the classroom and make it work, then it fails.

  Nancy Kassebaum

  Education, Teacher, Failure

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• A lot of the parallel processing software we're currently developing for supercomputers is tantric.

  Frederick Lenz

  Science, Computer, Software

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• All problems in Computer Science can be solved by another level of indirection.

  Butler Lampson

  Levels, Computer, Problem

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• We're losing track of the vastness of the potential for computer science. We really have to revive the beautiful intellectual joy of it, as opposed to the business potential.

  Jaron Lanier

  Beautiful, Track, Joy

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