Arithmetic Quote by Bertrand Meyer
“You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time.”
About This Quote
Source Speech: Conference on Software Engineering, 1995
Prioritizing either high-level software quality or low-level pointer manipulation forces a trade‑off; you cannot fully achieve both simultaneously.
In simple terms: Choose between clean design or direct memory tricks.
Key Takeaway
Decide what matters most for your project.
Themes
software engineering
trade‑offs
quality
low‑level programming
Mood
pragmatic
analytical
Type
advice
technical
When to use this quote
- systems programming
- embedded development
- high‑performance computing
- critical safety software
Key Concepts
abstraction
memory safety
performance
maintainability
Questions to Reflect On
- Can you achieve both with safer languages?
- What risks does each choice entail?
A Different Perspective
Balancing safety and speed may be possible with modern languages and tools.
![“The precision provided (or enforced) by programming languages and their execution can identify lacunas, ambiguities, and other areas of potential confusion in conventional [mathematical] notation.” quote by Kenneth E. Iverson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d25/kenneth-e-iverson-37528_ambiguity_the-precision-provided-or-enforced-by-pr_471194.jpg)
