Since we're sharing quotes, here are ten programming quotes that I like:
* If C++ has taught me one thing, it's this: Just because the system is consistent doesn't mean it's not the work of Satan.
-- Andrew Plotkin
* We build our computer (systems) the way we build our cities: over time, without a plan, on top of ruins.
-- Ellen Ullman
* I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone.
-- Bjarne Stroustrup
* F U cn rd dis U mst uz Unix.
-- Tim Roberts
* In computer science, we stand on each other's feet.
-- Brian Reid
* Ah programming, never before has a profession held itself in such low esteem.
* Now, I have to point out that making fun of Emacs Lisp is kind of like kicking a puppy... a puppy who's been dead since 1981.
-- Jamie Zawinski
* An operating system is a collection of things that don't fit into a language. There shouldn't be one.
-- Dan Ingalls, Design Principles Behind Smalltalk
* C will not only let you shoot yourself in the foot, it will hand you a new magazine when you run out of bullets.
-- Charlie Stross
* Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
-- Donald Knuth
* The Advanced Automation System suffered from that peculiar form of dissociation from reality which seems to happen only when lawyers try to tell engineers what to do.
Sometimes it pays to stay in bed on Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday’s code.
--Christopher Thompson
A friend of mine running an XP project got empirical numbers indicating that some large fraction of the project's bugs were associated with check-ins after 4pm. So he made a rule: no check-ins after 4pm. Result: a whopping decrease in the rate of new bugs.
I know you said YMMV, but wouldn't it be expected that the rate of new bugs would remain close to constant while their peak occurrences shift to earlier in the afternoon? It's just moving a "deadline" back.
This may be the case, but it might also turn out that the team is no longer checking in rushed and untested code as they hurry to get out of the office and go home for the evening. Instead, the may just hold off on checking in the code until the next morning, at which point they've slept on it and possibly thought about some edge cases they should test further, etc.
My point today is that, if we wish to count lines of code, we should
not regard them as "lines produced" but as "lines spent": the current
conventional wisdom is so foolish as to book that count on the wrong
side of the ledger.
...
needless to say, refusal to exploit this power of down-to-earth
mathematics amounts to intellectual and technological suicide.
In other words, when building sand castles on the beach, we can ignore
the waves but watch the tide.
...
The other day I found in the University bookstore in Eindhoven a book
on how to use “Wordperfect 5.0” of more than 850 pages, in fact a
dozen pages more than my 1951 edition of Georg Joos, “Theoretical
Physics”. It is time to unmask the computing community as a Secret
Society for the Creation and Preservation of Artificial Complexity.
In the wake of the Cultural Revolution and now of the recession I
observe a mounting pressure to co-operate and to promote
"teamwork". For its anti-individualistic streak, such a drive is of
course highly suspect; some people may not be so sensitive to it, but
having seen the Hitlerjugend in action suffices for the rest of your
life to be very wary of "team spirit". Very. I have even read one text
that argued that university scientists should co-operate more in order
to become more competitive..... Bureaucracies are in favour of
teamwork because a few groups are easier to control than a large
number of rugged individuals. Granting agencies are in favour of
supporting large established organizations rather than individual
researchers, because the support of the latter, though much cheaper,
is felt to be more risky; it also requires more thinking per dollar
funding. Teamwork is also promoted because it is supposed to be more
efficient, though in general this hope is not justified.
...
It is the weak departments that are more tempted to seek each other's
support and to believe that there is might in numbers. But such
co-operation is of course based on the theory that, when you tie two
stones together, the combination will float.
...
To quote Harvey Earl of GM: "General Motors is in business for only
one reason. To make money. In order to do that we make cars. But if we
could make money by making garbage cans, we would make garbage
cans.". Some people might argue that they even tried to make money by
making garbage. But the product is secondary; to quote Harvey Earl
again: "Listen, I'd put smokestacks right in the middle of the sons of
bitches if I thought I could sell more cars.". These quotations are
from the fifties, but things have not changed that much.
...
Academic computing science is doing fine, thank you, and unless I am
totally mistaken, it will have a profound influence. I am not
referring to the changes that result from computers in their capacity
of tools. Okay, the equipment opens new opportunities for the
entertainment industry, but who cares about that anyhow. The equipment
has enabled the airline industry to make its rates so complicated and
volatile that you need an expert to buy a ticket, and for this
discouragement of air travel we can be grateful, but the true impact
comes from the equipment in its capacity of intellectual challenge.
* If C++ has taught me one thing, it's this: Just because the system is consistent doesn't mean it's not the work of Satan.
-- Andrew Plotkin
* We build our computer (systems) the way we build our cities: over time, without a plan, on top of ruins.
-- Ellen Ullman
* I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone.
-- Bjarne Stroustrup
* F U cn rd dis U mst uz Unix.
-- Tim Roberts
* In computer science, we stand on each other's feet.
-- Brian Reid
* Ah programming, never before has a profession held itself in such low esteem.
-- Stevenvotich (http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8y348/my_progra...)
* Now, I have to point out that making fun of Emacs Lisp is kind of like kicking a puppy... a puppy who's been dead since 1981.
-- Jamie Zawinski
* An operating system is a collection of things that don't fit into a language. There shouldn't be one.
-- Dan Ingalls, Design Principles Behind Smalltalk
* C will not only let you shoot yourself in the foot, it will hand you a new magazine when you run out of bullets.
-- Charlie Stross
* Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
-- Donald Knuth
* The Advanced Automation System suffered from that peculiar form of dissociation from reality which seems to happen only when lawyers try to tell engineers what to do.
-- John J. Reilly (http://www.johnreilly.info/ggov.htm)
Yeah, I know; this list goes to eleven.