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
And don't tell me there isn't one bit of difference between null and space, because that's exactly how much difference there is.
Larry Wall
In the good old days physicists repeated each other's experiments, just to be sure. Today they stick to FORTRAN, so that they can share each other's programs, bugs included.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.
Alan Kay
All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer.
IBM Manual, 1925
Prolonged contact with the computer turns mathematicians into clerks and vice versa.
Alan J. Perlis
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough.
Alan Kay
The computer reminds one of Lon Chaney -- it is the machine of a thousand faces.
Alan J. Perlis
Don't fix it if it ain't broke presupposes that you can't improve something that works reasonably well already. If the world's inventors had believed this, we'd still be driving Model A Fords and using outhouses.
H. W. Kenton
Startups almost never get it right the first time. Much more commonly you launch something, and no one cares. Don’t assume when this happens that you’ve failed. That’s normal for startups. But don’t sit around doing nothing. Iterate.
Paul Graham