Computer language Quotes · Page 3

The tools we use have a profound and devious influence on our thinking habits, and therefore on our thinking abilities.

— Edsger Dijkstra

[Emacs] is written in Lisp, which is the only computer language that is beautiful.

— Neal Stephenson

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

— Robert Coveyou

It takes a touch of genius-and a lot of Courage-to move in the opposite direction.

— Albert Einstein

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

— John W. Gardner

We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.

— Anonymous

The proof of a high education is the ability to speak about complex matters as simply as possible.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

When teaching a rapidly changing technology, perspective is more important than content.

— Richard E. Pattis

Whereas smaller computer languages have features designed into them, C++ is unusual in having a whole swathe of functionality discovered, like a…

— Verity Stob

Quite frankly, even if the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out, that in itself would…

— Linus Torvalds

The best programmers are not marginally better than merely good ones. They are an order-of-magnitude better, measured by whatever standard: conceptual creativity,…

— Randall E. Stross

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 structure of a software system provides the ecology in which code is born, matures, and dies. A well-designed habitat allows for…

— Richard E. Pattis

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

— Sugata Mitra

I, myself, have had many failures and I've learned that if you are not failing a lot, you are probably not being…

— John Backus

A great lathe operator commands several times the wage of an average lathe operator, but a great writer of software code is…

— Bill Gates

So many computer languages try to force you into one way of thinking and Perl is very much the opposite of that…

— Larry Wall

Although our grammar schools are teaching a whole generation computer language to adjust to the technological needs of a Stage II [post…

— Warren Farrell

The discipline of programming is most like sorcery. Both use precise language to instruct inanimate objects to do our bidding. Small mistakes…

— Richard E. Pattis

When building a complex system, having crackerjack programmers (who can make any design work, even a bad one) can be a liability.…

— Richard E. Pattis

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

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

More than the act of testing, the act of designing tests is one of the best bug preventers known.

— Boris Beizer

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

— Richard E. Pattis

FORTRAN was the language of choice for the same reason that three-legged races are popular.

— Ken Thompson

One can think effectively only when one is willing to endure suspense and to undergo the trouble of searching.

— John Dewey

Programming is similar to a game of golf. The point is not getting the ball in the hole but how many strokes…

— Hayley Mills

In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.

— William James

The three most important aspects of debugging and real estate are the same: Location, Location, and Location.

— Richard E. Pattis

That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally…

— George Boole

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

— Brian Kernighan

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

— Tom Duff

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

— Marvin Minsky

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

— Larry Wall

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

— Richard E. Pattis

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

Computer languages differ not so much in what they make possible, but in what they make easy.

— Larry Wall

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

— Richard E. Pattis

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