Computer language Quotes

If you cannot grok the overall structure of a program while taking a shower, you are not ready to code it.

— Richard E. Pattis

I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an…

— Alan Perlis

Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defense against…

— David Gelernter

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

— Robert Coveyou

First, we want to establish the idea that a computer language is not just a way of getting a computer to perform…

— Hal Abelson

When certain concepts of TeX are introduced informally, general rules will be stated; afterwards you will find that the rules aren't strictly…

— Donald Knuth

A teacher's job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded.

— Darwin D. Martin

Computer Science is the only discipline in which we view adding a new wing to a building as being maintenance.

— Jim Horning

One purpose of CRC cards [a design tool] is to fail early, to fail often, and to fail inexpensively. It is a…

— Cay S. Horstmann

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

— Richard E. Pattis

It's [programming] the only job I can think of where I get to be both an engineer and an artist. There's an…

— Andy Hertzfeld

Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defense against…

— David Gelernter

As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we…

— Maurice Wilkes

Composing computer programs to solve scientific problems is like writing poetry. You must choose every word with care and link it with…

— James Lovelock

Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.

— Donald Knuth

Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming: any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half…

— Philip Greenspun

When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem.

— R. Buckminster Fuller

Lisp isn't a language, it's a building material.

— Alan Kay

Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected without, I thought, proper consideration.

— Stan Kelly-Bootle

The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a…

— Fred Brooks

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher.

— John W. Gardner

In those days [batch processing] programmers never even documented their programs, because it was assumed that nobody else would ever use them.…

— Robert Fano

The only way for errors to occur in a program is by being put there by the author. No other mechanisms are…

— Harlan Mills

It's OK to figure out murder mysteries, but you shouldn't need to figure out code. You should be able to read it.

— Steve McConnell

Human languages tend to be much more ambiguous than computer languages because humans are much smarter about interpreting the context.

— Larry Wall