Best programming and hacker quotes. Ever.
Curated by fellow hackers Jarmo Pertman & Andri Möll
In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
Alan J. Perlis
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
There will always be things we wish to say in our programs that in all known languages can only be said poorly.
Alan J. Perlis
The most important computer is the one that rages in our skulls and ever seeks that satisfactory external emulator. The standarization of real computers would be a disaster - and so it probably won't happen.
Alan J. Perlis
Functions delay binding; data structures induce binding. Moral: Structure data late in the programming process.
Alan J. Perlis
You're never done, you just run out of time.
Anonymous
Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is Latin for office automation?
Alan J. Perlis
In programming, everything we do is a special case of something more general -- and often we know it too quickly.
Alan J. Perlis
Only Half of programming is coding. The other 90% is debugging.
Anonymous
Design bugs are often subtle and occur by evolution with early assumptions being forgotten as new features or uses are added to a system.
Fernando J. Corbató