25 Programming Quotations

·         If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.
- Edsger Dijkstra (Dutch computer scientist, winner of the 1972 Turing Award)

·         Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
- Martin Golding

·         "Good code is its own best documentation" - Steve McConnell

·         “Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.”
- Bill Gates (co-founder of Microsoft)

·         “Nine people can’t make a baby in a month.” (regarding the addition of more programmers to get a project completed faster)
- Fred Brooks (American computer scientist, winner of the 1999 Turing Award)

·         “When debugging, novices insert corrective code; experts remove defective code.”
- Richard Pattis

·         “Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”
- Brian W. Kernighan (Canadian computer scientist, co-author of “C programming language”)

·         “C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.”
- Bjarne Stroustrup (Danish computer scientist, developer of the C++ programming language)

·         “Most good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program.”
- Linus Torvalds (Finnish American, software engineer and hacker, principal force behind the development of the Linux kernel)

·         “Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter.”
- Eric S. Raymond (American programmer, open source software advocate, author of “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”)

·         “Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.”
- Martin Fowler (author and speaker on software development)

·         “Good code is its own best documentation. As you’re about to add a comment, ask yourself, ‘How can I improve the code so that this comment isn’t needed?’
- Steve McConnell (author of many software engineering books including “Code Complete”)

·         “The computing scientist’s main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.” - E.W.Dijkstra

·         “Unix is simple. It just takes a genius to understand its simplicity.” - Dennis Ritchie

·         “Before software can be reusable it first has to be usable.” - Ralph Johnson

·         “C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.” – Anonymous

·         “Programming can be fun, so can cryptography; however they should not be combined.” - Kreitzberg and Shneiderman

·         “Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.” -Jamie Zawinski

·         “If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.” -Edsger Dijkstra

·         I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. -Bjarne Stroustrup

·         COBOL programmers understand why women hate periods. – Anonymous

·         A Perl program is correct if it gets the job done before your boss fires you. -Larry Wall

·         Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning. - Rick Cook

·         If you lie to the compiler, it will get its revenge. -Henry Spencer

·         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