Aim
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. (Pablo Picasso) Writing in C or C++ is like running a chain saw with all the safety guards removed. (Bob Gray) It’s not a bug – it’s an undocumented feature. (Anonymous) To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer. (Paul Ehrlich) C++ : Where friends have access to your private members. (Gavin Russell Baker)
The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time. (Tom Cargill) There’s an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to use as his telephone. That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to use my telephone. (Bjarne Stroustrup) As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn’t as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs. (Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949) There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses. (Bjarne Stroustrup) Deleted code is debugged code. (Jeff Sickel)
Without requirements or design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file. (Louis Srygley) Programming is like sex. One mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life. (Michael Sinz) Complexity kills. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges, and it causes end-user and administrator frustration. (Ray Ozzie) Programmers are in a race with the Universe to create bigger and better idiot-proof programs, while the Universe is trying to create bigger and better idiots. So far the Universe is winning. (Rich Cook)
I think Microsoft named .Net so it wouldn’t show up in a Unix directory listing. (Oktal) Computer language design is just like a stroll in the park. Jurassic Park, that is. (Larry Wall) Before software can be reusable it first has to be usable. (Ralph Johnson) If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in. (Edsger Dijkstra)
The best programmers are not marginally better than merely good ones. They are an order-of-magnitude better, measured by whatever standard: conceptual creativity, speed, ingenuity of design, or problem-solving ability. (Randall E. Stross) Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it’s released. Beta is Latin for “still doesn’t work”. (Anonymous) C++ : Where friends have access to your private members. (Gavin Russell Baker) There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. (Ken Olson, President, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977) 640K ought to be enough for anybody. (Bill Gates, 1981)
Every operating system out there is about equal… We all suck. (Microsoft senior vice president Brian Valentine describing the state of the art in OS security, 2003) There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. (C.A.R. Hoare) We are Microsoft. Resistance Is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated. (Bumper sticker) Saying that Java is nice because it works on all OSes is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders. (Alanna)
The Internet? Is that thing still around? (Homer Simpson) The function of good software is to make the complex appear to be simple. (Grady Booch) Any code of your own that you haven’t looked at for six or more months might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson’s Law) A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history–with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila. (Mitch Radcliffe) Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it’s released. Beta is Latin for “still doesn’t work”. (Anonymous)
A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place. (IEEE Grid newsmagazine) PHP is a minor evil perpetrated and created by incompetent amateurs, whereas Perl is a great and insidious evil perpetrated by skilled but perverted professionals. (Jon Ribbens) Writing in C or C++ is like running a chain saw with all the safety guards removed. (Bob Gray) Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window. (Steve Wozniak) Without requirements or design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file. (Louis Srygley)
The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry. (Henry Petroski) To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer. (Paul Ehrlich) We will never become a truly paper-less society until the Palm Pilot folks come out with WipeMe 1.0. (Andy Pierson) You can’t have great software without a great team, and most software teams behave like dysfunctional families. (Jim McCarthy)
Good code is its own best documentation. (Steve McConnell) It’s a curious thing about our industry: not only do we not learn from our mistakes, but we also don’t learn from our successes. (Keith Braithwaite) You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time. (Bertrand Meyer) That’s the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers. (Larry Niven) Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming; feedback is the treatment. (Kent Beck)