Best programming and hacker quotes. Ever.
Curated by fellow hackers Jarmo Pertman & Andri Möll
A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
Alan J. Perlis
Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Anonymous
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Charles Babbage
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.
Alan J. Perlis
Don't fix it if it ain't broke presupposes that you can't improve something that works reasonably well already. If the world's inventors had believed this, we'd still be driving Model A Fords and using outhouses.
H. W. Kenton
Prolonged contact with the computer turns mathematicians into clerks and vice versa.
Alan J. Perlis
In a 5 year period we get one superb programming language. Only we can't control when the 5 year period will be.
Alan J. Perlis
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
Kent Beck
Whereas Europeans generally pronounce my name the right way ('Nick-louse Veert'), Americans invariably mangle it into 'Nickel's Worth.' This is to say that Europeans call me by name, but Americans call me by value.
Niklaus Wirth
Java is like a variant of the game of Tetris in which none of the pieces can fill gaps created by the other pieces, so all you can do is pile them up endlessly.
Steve Yegge