Programming Quotes - Page 16

• Many people tend to look at programming styles and languages like religions: if you belong to one, you cannot belong to others. But this analogy is another fallacy.

  Niklaus Wirth

  People, Style, Looks

  "The Awakening of Global Consciousness: A Guide to Self-Realization and Spirituality". Book by Jawara D. King, 2010.

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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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• 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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• There is a race between the increasing complexity of the systems we build and our ability to develop intellectual tools for understanding their complexity. If the race is won by our tools, then systems will eventually become easier to use and more reliable. If not, they will continue to become harder to use and less reliable for all but a relatively small set of common tasks. Given how hard thinking is, if those intellectual tools are to succeed, they will have to substitute calculation for thought.

  Leslie Lamport

  Learning, Thinking, Race

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• Programming languages, like pizzas, come in only too sizes; too big and too small.

  Richard E. Pattis

  Learning, Size, Language

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• It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?

  Alan Perlis

  Fun, Learning, Self

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

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• From a programmer's point of view, the user is a peripheral that types when you issue a read request.

  Pharrell Williams

  Learning, Views, Issues

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• Nine people can't make a baby in a month.

  Fred Brooks

  Baby, People, Nine

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• I find languages that support just one programming paradigm constraining

  Bjarne Stroustrup

  Support, Language, Paradigm

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

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• Nevertheless, I consider OOP as an aspect of programming in the large; that is, as an aspect that logically follows programming in the small and requires sound knowledge of procedural programming.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Sound, Aspect, Nevertheless

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• The kind of programming that C provides will probably remain similar absolutely or slowly decline in usage, but relatively, JavaScript or its variants, or XML, will continue to become more central.

  Dennis Ritchie

  Aggravation, Javascript, Kind

  "The future according to Dennis Ritchie". Interview with Danny Kalev, www.itworld.com. December 20, 2000.

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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, Code

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• The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.... The computer resembles the magic of legend in this respect, too. If one character, one pause, of the incantation is not strictly in proper form, the magic doesn't work. Human beings are not accustomed to being perfect, and few areas of human activity demand it. Adjusting to the requirement for perfection is, I think, the most difficult part of learning to program.

  Fred Brooks

  Character, Thinking, Perfect

  "The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering". Book by Frederick Brooks, 1975.

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• In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.

  Alan Perlis

  Language, Programming Languages

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

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• Programming is usually taught by examples.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Example, Taught

  "Program Development by Stepwise Refinement". Communications of the ACM 14 (4): pp. 221-227, April 1971.

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• Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.

  Alan Perlis

  Progress, Language, Manage

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

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• A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

  Douglas Adams

  Inspirational, Funny, Fake People

  Douglas Adams (2012). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five”, p.690, Pan Macmillan

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• Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the second law of thermodynamics; i.e. it always increases.

  Norman Ralph Augustine

  Science, Law, Literature

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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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• Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

  Charles Mingus

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Music

  Charles Mingus' statement in Mainliner Magazine (July 1977); later quoted in Olivia Bertagnolli "Creativity and the writing process" (p. 182), 1982.

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• Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.

  Laurence J. Peter

  Business, Intelligent, Thinking

  "Peter's Almanac". Book by Laurence J. Peter. Entry for September 24, 1982.

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• 

  A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

  Emo Philips

  Funny, Motivational Sports, Humorous

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• Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.

  Andy Rooney

  Witty, Work, Technology

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• Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

  E. F. Schumacher

  Inspirational, Motivational, Courage

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• If you stay up late and you have another hour of work to do, you can just stay up another hour later without running into a wall and having to stop. Whereas it might take three or four hours if you start over, you might finish if you just work that extra hour. If you're a morning person, the day always intrudes a fixed amount of time in the future. So it's much less efficient. Which is why I think computer people tend to be night people - because a machine doesn't get sleepy.

  Bill Joy

  Running, Morning, Wall

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