Best programming and hacker quotes. Ever.
Curated by fellow hackers Jarmo Pertman & Andri Möll
If you want to confuse your enemies, give them the source code. If you want to really confuse them, give them the documentation.
Anonymous
Purely applicative languages are poorly applicable.
Alan J. Perlis
Optimization hinders evolution.
Alan J. Perlis
If our customers wanted a product that worked that way, tell them to purchase a product that works that way.
Anonymous
Engineering is the art of doing with one dollar what any damn fool can do with two.
From Space Systems Failures by David M. Harland and Ralph D. Lorenz
Education is the process of learning more and more about less and less until one knows everything about nothing and is entitled to call oneself 'Doctor'.
Anonymous
If two people write exactly the same program, each should be put into microcode and then they certainly won't be the same.
Alan J. Perlis
It's hard enough to find an error in your code when you're looking for it; it's even harder when you've assumed your code is error-free.
Steve McConnell
If you can imagine a society in which the computer - robot is the only menial, you can imagine anything.
Alan J. Perlis
[The common definition of estimate is] "An estimate is the most optimistic prediction that has a non-zero probability of coming true" . . .
Tom DeMarco
Accepting this definition leads irrevocably toward a method called what's-the-earliest- date-by-which-you-can't-prove-you-won't-be- finished estimating.