Computer programming Quotes · Page 3

I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my…

— Maurice Wilkes

The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich may find hard…

— Tony Hoare

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…

— Steve McConnell

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

Computer language design is just like a stroll in the park. Jurassic Park, that is.

— Larry Wall

You cannot teach beginners top-down programming, because they don't know which end is up.

— Tony Hoare

Computer programming is pretty much guaranteed income. I'm good at it, and I like it.

— Andy Weir

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

— Richard E. Pattis

In theory, I work an eight-hour day and a five-day week which means I can socialise with my pals who mostly have…

— Iain Banks

“Pascal (Object Pascal - Free Pascal) for real programmers, Delphi for Nerds... C/C++ for people who always wishes to do things like…

— Rejie Roque

The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the…

— Henry Petroski

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

In software, we rarely have meaningful requirements. Even if we do, the only measure of success that matters is whether our solution…

— Jeff Atwood

Learning to code makes kids feel empowered, creative, and confident. If we want our young women to retain these traits into adulthood,…

— Susan Wojcicki

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

Microsoft has a new version out, Windows XP, which according to everybody is the 'most reliable Windows ever.' To me, this is…

— Dave Barry

We often treat children as if they're not very competent to do anything on their own. So we make them stop learning…

— Seymour Papert

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

The best programs are written so that computing machines can perform them quickly and so that human beings can understand them clearly.…

— Anonymous

Technology and computers are very much at the core of our economy going forward. To be prepared for the demands of the…

— Todd Park

To treat programming scientifically, it must be possible to specify the required properties of programs precisely. Formality is certainly not an end…

— Jim Horning

We think only through the medium of words. Languages are true analytical methods. Algebra, which is adapted to its purpose in every…

— Antoine Lavoisier

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

— Robert Fano

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

— Edsger Dijkstra

I made my first website in sixth grade. I was the only girl in my computer programming class.

— iJustine

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

If we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as 'lines produced' but as 'lines spent.'

— Edsger Dijkstra

The best performance improvement is the transition from the nonworking state to the working state.

— John Ousterhout

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

— Richard E. Pattis

“In programming the World Wide Computer, we will be programming our lives.”

— Nicholas Carr

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

The only people who have anything to fear from free software are those whose products are worth even less.

— David F. Emery

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

— Anonymous

A programming language is a tool that has profound influence on our thinking habits.

— Edsger Dijkstra

If you think about computer programming, it's as antisocial as it gets.

— Shawn Fanning

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

— Tom DeMarco

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