If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.Collection: Computers
In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word 'frustration'.Collection: Computers
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.Collection: God
I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.Collection: Technology
You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.Collection: Attitude
It goes against the grain of modern education to teach students to program. What fun is there to making plans, acquiring discipline, organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self critical.Collection: Learning
In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.Collection: Technology
The best book on programming for the layman is 'Alice in Wonderland'; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?
A picture is worth 10K words - but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.
It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.Collection: Trust
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.Collection: Learning
To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.Collection: Learning
When someone says, "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done," give him a lollipop.Collection: Funny Inspirational
You think you KNOW when you learn, are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.Collection: Writing
C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.Collection: Void
The best book on programming for the layman is Alice in Wonderland, but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.Collection: Book
In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.Collection: Running
Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.Collection: Top Down
In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.Collection: Men
Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.Collection: Hard Work
I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun.Collection: Fun
Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.Collection: Analysis
Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.Collection: Cancer
Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.Collection: Two
In English every word can be verbed.Collection: Language
Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.Collection: Mean
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?Collection: Fun
A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.Collection: Learning
In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.Collection: Mean
Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.Collection: Thinking
When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.Collection: Compassion
A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.Collection: Cost