Best programming and hacker quotes. Ever.
Curated by fellow hackers Jarmo Pertman & Andri Möll
Think of it this way: threads are like salt, not like pasta. You like salt, I like salt, we all like salt. But we eat more pasta.
Larry McVoy
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
It takes an intelligent person to build something complex; it takes a genius to build something simple.
Anonymous
Symmetry is a complexity-reducing concept (co-routines include subroutines); seek it everywhere.
Alan J. Perlis
It makes no sense to try to do what we can. We must do what is necessary.
Winston Churchill
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden: Languages whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf.
Alan J. Perlis
My programs don't have bugs, they just develop random features.
Anonymous
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned.
Bruce Ediger
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