Best programming and hacker quotes. Ever.
Curated by fellow hackers Jarmo Pertman & Andri Möll
Fast, Cheap, Reliable: Pick any two.
Anonymous
One does not learn computing by using a hand calculator, but one can forget arithmetic.
Alan J. Perlis
What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern computer? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest and the establishment of a Hilton hotel on its peak.
Alan J. Perlis
The eleventh commandment was "Thou Shalt Compute" or "Thou Shalt Not Compute" - I forget which.
Alan J. Perlis
Optimization hinders evolution.
Alan J. Perlis
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
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough.
Alan Kay
The more bizarre the behavior, the more stupid the mistake.
Ed's Law of Debugging
Code is everything I thought poetry was, back when we were in school. Clean, expressive, urgent, all-encompassing. Fourteen lines can open up to fill the available universe.
Richard Powers
Make no mistake about it: Computers process numbers - not symbols. We measure our understanding (and control) by the extent to which we can arithmetize an activity.
Alan J. Perlis