Programming Funny Quotes

• If at first you don't succeed, Call an airstrike.

  Banksy

  Firsts, Succeed, Geek

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• Any fool can use a computer. Many do.

  Ted Nelson

  Technology, Use, Fool

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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

  93 Copy quote

• One of my most productive days was throwing away 1,000 lines of code.

  Ken Thompson

  Great Day, Lines, Computer

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

  Robert Sewell

  Java, Garbage, Execution

  46 Copy quote

• In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

  Yogi Berra

  Leadership, Funny Inspirational, Reality

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

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• Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law

  Douglas Hofstadter

  Law, Research, Favourite

  Godel, Escher, Bach ch. 5 (1979)

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• If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Funny, Debugging, Bugs

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• 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, Coders, Debugging

  Lecture titled "The Design and Use of the EDSAC" delivered by Maurice Wilkes at the Digital Computer Museum, tcm.computerhistory.org. September 23, 1979.

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• Talk is cheap. Show me the code.

  Linus Torvalds

  Coders, Linux, Programming

  Linux kernel mailing list message, lkml.org. August 25, 2000.

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• A good programmer is someone who always looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.

  Doug Linder

  Funny, Humor, Technology

  71 Copy quote

• 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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• 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.

  Rick Cook

  Winning, Technology, Race

  "The Wizardry Compiled". Book by Rick Cook, 1989.

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• Software sucks because users demand it to.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Funny Inspirational, Demand, Programming

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• The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.

  Robert Coveyou

  Learning, Numbers, Important

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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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• It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Students, Impossible, Programming

  Edsger W. Dijkstra (2012). “Selected Writings on Computing: A personal Perspective”, p.130, Springer Science & Business Media

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• C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success.

  Dennis Ritchie

  Quirky, Computer, Programming

  "Inventing Unix". Interview with Samuel K. Moore, Steven Cherry, spectrum.ieee.org. May 27, 2011.

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• I am rarely happier than when spending an entire day programming my computer.

  Douglas Adams

  Computer, Programming, Spending

  Douglas Adams, Mark Carwardine (2011). “Last Chance to See”, p.49, Ballantine Books

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Witty, Humorous, Teaching

  "How do we tell truths that might hurt?" by Edsger Dijkstra, June 18, 1975.

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• Premature optimization is the root of all evil.

  Donald Knuth

  Science, Roots, Evil

  Donald Ervin Knuth (1986). “TEX: The Program”, Addison-Wesley Professional

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• Java is C++ without the guns, clubs and knives.

  James Gosling

  Gun, Knives, Java

  "Object Oriented Programming with C++ (Second Edition)". Book by David Parsons, November 8, 2000.

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• The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.

  Nathaniel Borenstein

  Humorous, Learning, Agreement

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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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