Programming Quotes

• I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

  Confucius

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  337 Copy quote

• Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

  Martin Fowler

  Inspirational, Funny, Humorous

  Jay Fields, Shane Harvie, Martin Fowler, Kent Beck (2009). “Refactoring: Ruby Edition”, p.36, Pearson Education

  84 Copy quote

  Show source

• Programming is a skill best acquired by practice and example rather than from books.

  Alan Turing

  Book, Practice, Skills

  247 Copy quote

• Development is maintenance.

  Brian Marick

  Learning, Maintenance, Development

  7 Copy quote

• We spend too much time fretting over the way the industry produces programming, and too little worrying about the way the public consumes it

  Michael Medved

  Worry, Littles, Too Much

  6 Copy quote

• In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  45 Copy quote

• 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.

  50 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  59 Copy quote

  Show source

• Most of the good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program.

  Linus Torvalds

  Fun, Work, Program

  "First Monday Interview with Linus Torvalds: What motivates free software developers?". Interview with Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, firstmonday.org. March 2, 1998.

  140 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

  Carl Sagan

  Wisdom, Understanding, Brain

  106 Copy quote

• Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.

  Linus Torvalds

  Intelligence, Done, Ability

  68 Copy quote

• The best is the enemy of the good.

  Voltaire

  Inspirational, Military, Learning

  Letter to Duc de Richelieu, 18 June 1744. Although this saying is now associated with Voltaire, he is obviously quoting an Italian proverb here. The French form, which he used later, is Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• He [John von Neumann] had the invaluable faculty of being able to take the most difficult problem and separate it into its components, whereupon everything looked brlliantly simple.

  Stanislaw Ulam

  Learning, Simple, Able

  10 Copy quote
• 

  Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.

  Bill Gates

  Success, Trust, Leadership

  23 Copy quote

• All hope abandon, ye who enter here!

  Dante Alighieri

  Pedestal, Divine Comedy, Inferno

  Dante Alighieri, Henry Francis Cary (2010). “The Divine Comedy”, p.210, Bibliolis Books

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers.

  Richard Hamming

  Learning, Math, Numbers

  "Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers". Book by Richard Hamming, 1962.

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Doug Linder

  Funny, Humor, Technology

  71 Copy quote

• If we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as "lines produced" but as "lines spent."

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Learning, Wish, Lines

  "On the cruelty of really teaching computing science" by Edsger Dijkstra, www.cs.utexas.edu. December 2, 1988.

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich may find hard to pay.

  Tony Hoare

  Simplicity, Reliability, May

  "The Emperor's Old Clothes". Tony Hoare's lecture at the 1980 ACM Turing Award in Nashville, Tennessee; "Communications of the ACM", Volume 24, Issue 2, dl.acm.org. February 1981.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.

  Donald Knuth

  Art, Math, Science

  Foreword to the book "A=B" by Marko Petkovsek, Herbert S. Wilf and Doron Zeilberger, 1996.

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

• A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.

  Alan Turing

  Believe, Intelligent, Hype

  "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". Book by Alan Turing, 1950.

  269 Copy quote

  Show source

• Good code is its own best documentation.

  Steve McConnell

  Technology, Documentation, Computer

  Steve McConnell (2004). “Code Complete”, p.817, Pearson Education

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories.

  Ray Bradbury

  Education, Book, College

  24 Copy quote

• If you treat your beta-testers as if they're your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource.

  Eric S. Raymond

  Becoming, Resources, Treats

  Eric S. Raymond (2001). “The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary”, p.38, "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ask not first what the system does; ask what it does it to!

  Bertrand Meyer

  Doe, Firsts, Asks

  9 Copy quote