Collected quotes about computers/programming
Premature optimization is the root of all evil in programming. -- C.A.R. Hoare Fools ignore complexity; pragmatists suffer it; experts avoid it; geniuses remove it. -- Alan Perlis If you cannot grok the overall structure of a program while taking a shower, you are not ready to code it. -- Richard Pattis The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards. -- Arthur Koestler The string is a stark data structure and everywhere it is passed there is duplication. It is a perfect vehicle for hiding information. -- Alan J Perlis C has all the expressive power of two dixie cups and a string. -- Jamie Zawinski I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind. -- Alan Kay Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp. -- Philip Greenspun Perl is like vise grips. You can do anything with it but it is the wrong tool for every job. -- Bruce Eckel Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald Knuth There are two major products that came out of Berkeley: LSD and BSD. We don't believe this to be a coincidence. -- Jeremy S. Anderson Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs. Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do. -- Donald Knuth You're bound to be unhappy if you optimize everything. -- Donald Knuth To iterate is human, to recurse divine. -- L. Peter Deutsch Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems. -- Jamie Zawinski It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to Basic; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. -- Edsger Dijkstra The object-oriented model makes it easy to build up programs by accretion. What this often means, in practice, is that it provides a structured way to write spaghetti code. -- Paul Graham There are only two things wrong with C++: The initial concept and the implementation. -- Bertrand Meyer Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how they should solve some problem, they said, "OK, we'll do them both". So the language is too baroque for my taste. -- Donald Knuth c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */ -- Unknown Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. -- Edsger Dijkstra Everyone needs computer programming. It will be the way we speak to the servants. -- John McCarthy The question of whether Machines Can Think [we now know to be] about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim. -- Edsger Dijkstra The architecture of almost every computer today is designed to optimize the performance of Fortran programs and its operating-system-level sister, C. -- Richard Gabriel You cannot teach beginners top-down programming, because they don't know which end is up. -- C. A. R. Hoare Simplicity and elegance are unpopular because they require hard work and discipline to achieve and education to be appreciated. -- Edsger Dijkstra It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical? -- Alan Perlis The last good thing written in C was Franz Schubert's Symphony Number 9. -- Erwin Dieterich You can have quality software, or you can have pointer arithmetic; but you cannot have both at the same time. -- Bertrand Meyer The great thing about standards is there are so many to choose from. -- Andrew Tannenbaum E. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.8.3/824 - Release Date: 5/29/2007 1:01 PM _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
