Best programming and hacker quotes. Ever.
Curated by fellow hackers Jarmo Pertman & Andri Möll
Whenever two programmers meet to criticize their programs, both are silent.
Alan J. Perlis
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
One who works with their hands is a laborer.
Anonymous
One who works with their hands and their mind is a craftsman.
One who works with their hands, mind and heart is an artist.
In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be indented six feet downward and covered with dirt.
Blair P. Houghton
Programming is an unnatural act.
Alan J. Perlis
The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.
John Carmack on software patents
I hate code, and I want as little of it in our product as possible.
Jack Diederich
Yes, sometimes Perl looks like line noise to the uninitiated, but to the seasoned Perl programmer, it looks like checksummed line noise with a mission in life.
Randal Schwartz
If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution.
Robert Sewell
Over the centuries the Indians developed sign language for communicating phenomena of interest. Programmers from different tribes (FORTRAN, LISP, ALGOL, SNOBOL, etc.) could use one that doesn't require them to carry a blackboard on their ponies.
Alan J. Perlis