Computer language Quotes · Page 3

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

— Jim Horning

The real technology -behind all our other technologies- is language. It actually creates the world our consciousness lives in.

— Andrei Codrescu

Code should run as fast as necessary, but no faster; something important is always traded away to increase speed.

— Richard E. Pattis

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

— Larry Wall

Computer languages of the future will be more concerned with goals and less with procedures specified by the programmer.

— Marvin Minsky

The first step in fixing a broken program is getting it to fail repeatably [on the simplest example possible].

— Tom Duff

If you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?

— Brian Kernighan

Computer system analysis is like child-rearing; you can do grievous damage, but you cannot ensure success.

— Tom DeMarco

I was eventually persuaded of the need to design programming notations so as to maximize the number of errors which cannot be…

— Tony Hoare

In nine months, a group of children left alone with a computer - in any language - would reach the same standard…

— Sugata Mitra

At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer, you will find at least two human errors, one of…

— Tom Gilb

But the possibility of abuse may be a good reason for leaving capabilities out of other computer languages, it's not a good…

— Larry Wall

In the beginning we must simplify the subject, thus unavoidably falsifying it, and later we must sophisticate away the falsely simple beginning.

— Maimonides

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

Object-oriented programming as it emerged in Simula 67 allows software structure to be based on real-world structures, and gives programmers a powerful…

— David Gelernter

FORTRAN, the infantile disorder, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today:…

— Edsger Dijkstra

A most important, but also most elusive, aspect of any tool is its influence on the habits of those who train themselves…

— Edsger Dijkstra

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

Text is linear; it is black and white; it doesn't zoom around the page in 3-D; it isn't intelligent by itself; in…

— Andrea diSessa

If you stay up late and you have another hour of work to do, you can just stay up another hour later…

— Bill Joy

The error which underlies the very existence of this debate is that there is some kind of perfect Platonic form of the…

— Paul Vixie

When someone says, "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done," give him a lollipop.

— Alan Perlis

Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.

— Tom Van Vleck

There are two types of computer languages; those that people hate and those that nobody uses.

— John Ousterhout

Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.

— Larry Wall

A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.

— Alan Perlis

The value of a prototype is in the education it gives you, not in the code itself.

— Amari Cooper

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

— R. Buckminster Fuller

The purpose of most computer languages is to lengthen your resume by a word and a comma.

— Larry Wall

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

— Robert Sewell

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

— Richard E. Pattis

FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.

— Alan Perlis

You have to honor failure, because failure is just the negative space around success.

— Richard R. Nelson

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be…

— Leonardo da Vinci

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

— Donald Knuth

I made up the term "object-oriented," and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.

— 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

“C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole…

— Bjarne Stroustrup

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

— Darwin D. Martin