Nice collection, I added some of them to my collection. The C++ == octopus made by nailing extra legs to a dog is one of the best quotes ever, and is in my C++ page together with many other wonderful C++ quotes ;) http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/
Oh, and the one about X being like calculating the square root of PI using roman numerals is AFAIK attributed to Henry Spencer. Peace uriel On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 9:46 PM, Kris Maglione<maglion...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Jul 01, 2009 at 02:41:04PM +0200, Uriel wrote: >> >> lets use this thread to post your favorite programming quotes. > > C++: an octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog. > > The key to performance is elegance, not battalions of special cases. > --Jon Bentley and Doug McIlroy > > It's a curious thing about our industry: not only do we not learn from > our mistakes, we also don't learn from our successes. > --Keith Braithwaite > > For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading > edge, could be so useless, and then it occurred to me that a computer > is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, > while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do > incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match. > --Bill Bryson > > Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to > build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying > to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. > --Rich Cook > > I'm confident that tomorrow's Unix will look like today's Unix, only > cruftier. > --Russ Cox > > Just because the standard provides a cliff in front of you, you are > not necessarily required to jump off it. > --Norman Diamond > > Are you quite sure that all those bells and whistles, all those > wonderful facilities of your so called powerful programming languages, > belong to the solution set rather than the problem set? > --Edsger W. Dijkstra > > Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring > aircraft building progress by weight. > --Bill Gates > > Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology > because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defence > against complexity. > --David Gelernter > > 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 > > Get and set methods are evil. > --Allen Holub > > First, solve the problem. Then, write the code. > --John Johnson > > Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with > millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural > integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves. > --Alan Kay > > Simple things should be simple. Complex things should be possible. > --Alan Kay > > We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: > premature optimization is the root of all evil. > --Donald Knuth > > Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs > which are copies of the communication structures of these > organizations. (For example, if you have four groups working on a > compiler, you’ll get a 4-pass compiler) > --Conway’s Law > > For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, > and wrong. > --H. L. Mencken > > (Yes, this is related to programming, whether or not it was > meant to) > > Correctness is clearly the prime quality. If a system does not do > what it is supposed to do, then everything else about it matters > little. > --Bertrand Meyer > > For the time being, programming is a consumer job, assembly line > coding is the norm, and what little exciting stuff is being performed > is not going to make it compared to the mass-marketed crap sold by > those who think they can surf on the previous half-century's worth of > inventions forever. > --Eric Naggum > > Intellectual laziness is punishable by brain death. It is a natural > law. > --Eric Naggum > > Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question. NO is the > answer. > --Eric Naggum > > Sufficiently advanced political correctness is indistinguishable from > sarcasm. > --Eric Naggum > > 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 > > Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was > written, and another for which it wasn't. > --Alan J. Perlis > > If the designers of X Windows built cars, there would be no fewer than > five steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed > the same principles – but you’d be able to shift gears with your car > stereo. Useful feature that. > --Marcus J. Ranum, DEC > > (Oh, we *love* this one!) > > A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program > in than some that do. > --Dennis M. Ritchie > > The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the > intelligent full of doubt. > --Bertrand Russell > > Deleted code is debugged code. > --Jeff Sickel > > Mostly, when you see programmers, they aren't doing anything. One of > the attractive things about programmers is that you cannot tell > whether or not they are working simply by looking at them. Very often > they're sitting there seemingly drinking coffee and gossiping, or just > staring into space. What the programmer is trying to do is get a > handle on all the individual and unrelated ideas that are scampering > around in his head. > --Charles M. Strauss > > Haskell is faster than C++, more concise than Perl, more regular than > Python, more flexible than Ruby, more typeful than C#, more robust > than Java, and has absolutely nothing in common with PHP. > --Autrijus Tang > > (We all hate PHP here, don't we? (dissenters best not speak > lest they provoke a harsh tirade)) > > You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. > --Ken Thompson > > Saying that Java is good because it works on all platforms is like > saying anal sex is good because it works on all genders. > --Unknown > > Programming X Windows is like trying to find the square root of Pi > using roman numerals. > --Unknown > > Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. > --Leonardo da Vinci > > Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as > sophistication, which is baffling---the incomprehensible should cause > suspicion rather than admiration. Possibly this trend results from a > mistaken belief that using a somewhat mysterious device confers an > aura of power on the user. > --Niklaus Wirth > > -- > Kris Maglione > > For a sucessful technology, honesty must take precedence over public > relations for nature cannot be fooled. > --Richard Feynman > > >
