Best programming and hacker quotes. Ever.
Curated by fellow hackers Jarmo Pertman & Andri Möll
How do we convince people that in programming simplicity and clarity —in short: what mathematicians call "elegance"— are not a dispensable luxury, but a crucial matter that decides between success and failure?
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls must dive down below.
John Dryden
FORTRAN, the infantile disorder, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
E. W. Dijkstra
It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.
Alan J. Perlis
Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written, and another for which it wasn't.
Alan J. Perlis
You can't solve social problems through technical means.
Anonymous
Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more months might as well have been written by someone else.
Eagleson's Law
Arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras.
Alan Kay
Program testing can be a very effective way to show the presence of bugs, but is hopelessly inadequate for showing their absence.
Edsger Dijkstra
j++; // increment j
Anonymous