Best programming and hacker quotes. Ever.
Curated by fellow hackers Jarmo Pertman & Andri Möll
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
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
Users are a terrible thing. Systems would be infinitely more stable without them.
Michael T. Nygard.
It works on my machine.
Anonymous
Systems have sub-systems and sub-systems have sub- systems and so on ad infinitum - which is why we're always starting over.
Alan J. Perlis
I think there's a world market for about five computers.
Thomas J Watson Senior, 1945
Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long?
Alan J. Perlis
The string is a stark data structure and everywhere it is passed there is much duplication of process. It is a perfect vehicle for hiding information.
Alan J. Perlis
As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought.
Maurice Wilkes
'Goto' is always evil, like in 'goto school' or 'goto work'.
Anonymous