Software Engineering Quotes

• Indeed, the woes of Software Engineering are not due to lack of tools, or proper management, but largely due to lack of sufficient technical competence.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Engineering, Tools, Woe

  52 Copy quote

• Good engineering is characterized by gradual, stepwise refinement of products that yields increased performance under given constraints and with given resources.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Yield, Engineering, Resources

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• 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

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• If you think your management doesn't know what it's doing or that your organisation turns out low-quality software crap that embarrasses you, then leave.

  Edward Yourdon

  Thinking, Quality, Management

  Edward Yourdon (1998). “Rise & Resurrection of the American Programmer”, Yourdon

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• One: demonstrations always crash. And two: the probability of them crashing goes up exponentially with the number of people watching.

  Steve Jobs

  Two, Numbers, People

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• With enough eyes, all bugs are shallow.

  Eric S. Raymond

  Eye, Bugs, Enough

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• The cheapest, fastest, and most reliable components are those that aren't there.

  Gordon Bell

  Engineering, Programming, Software

  45 Copy quote

• If you think good architecture is expensive, try bad architecture.

  Brian Foote

  Thinking, Design, Trying

  47 Copy quote

• There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.

  Tony Hoare

  Witty, Humorous, Simple

  "The Emperor's Old Clothes". Communications of the ACM 24 (2), (pp. 75-83), February 1981.

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

  Richard E. Pattis

  Quality, Experts, Debugging

  62 Copy quote

• Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later

  Fred Brooks

  Computer, Projects, Programming

  "The Mythical Man-Month," Datamation, Dec. 1974

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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

• 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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• It's hard enough to find an error in your code when you're looking for it; it's even harder when you've assumed your code is error-free.

  Steve McConnell

  Funny Inspirational, Errors, Coders

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• It's better to wait for a productive programmer to become available than it is to wait for the first available programmer to become productive.

  Steve McConnell

  Waiting, Firsts, Computer

  Steve McConnell (1997). “Software Project Survival Guide”, p.103, Microsoft Press

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• The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Technology, Thinking, Swim

  Interview with Jack Schofield, www.theguardian.com. August 19, 2002.

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

  Fred Brooks

  Baby, People, Nine

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• It's a curious thing about our industry: not only do we not learn from our mistakes, we also don't learn from our successes.

  Keith Braithwaite

  Mistake, Coders, Curious

  45 Copy quote

• In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Success, Business, Military

  Quoted in Richard Nixon, Six Crises (1962)

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• The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.

  Fred Brooks

  Patience, Children, Matter

  "The Mythical Man-Month," Datamation, Dec. 1974

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

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Funny, Debugging, Bugs

  110 Copy quote

• 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

  54 Copy quote

• Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.

  Donald Knuth

  Funny Inspirational, Bugs, Computer

  Memorandum to Peter van Emde Boas, 29 Mar. 1977

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