Computer Science
Quotes for the Day!
Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one
instruction--
from which, by induction, one can reason that every program can be reduced to
one instruction which doesn't work.
-LINUX
motd
From that moment on, he set himself to do everything with twice as much
enthusiasm.
And where the arm had been torn away a wing grew.
-Nina
Cassian, "The Man"
I'll sleep when I'm dead.
-Warren
Zevon
"As soon as we started programming, we found out to our surprise that
it wasn't as easy to get
programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can
remember the exact
instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to
be spent in finding
mistakes in my own programs."
-Maurice Wilkes
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
-Thomas
Jefferson
If you have too many special cases, you are doing it wrong.
-Craig
Zerouni, Computer FX Ltd.
I'd rather write programs to write programs than write programs.
-Dick
Sites, DEC
If you have too many special cases, you are doing it wrong.
-Craig
Zerouni, Computer FX Ltd.
You know you've achieved perfection in design,
not when you have nothing more to add,
but when you have nothing more to take away.
-Antoine de Saint Exupery.
When in doubt, use brute force.
-Ken
Thompson, Bell Labs
If you can't write it down in English, you can't code it.
-Peter
Halpern, Brooklyn, New York
Eighty percent of all input forms ask questions they have no business asking.
-Mike
Garey, Bell Labs
Testing can show the presence of bugs, but not their absence.
-Dijkstra
Lisp programmers know the value of everything but the cost of nothing..
-Alan
Perlis, Yale University
Don't include a sentence in documentation if its negation is obviously false.
-Bob
Martin, AT&T
When explaining a command, or language feature, or hardware widget,
first describe the problem it is designed to solve.
-David
Martin
[One Page Principle]
A specification, design, procedure, or test plan that
will not fit on one page of 8.5-by-11 inch paper cannot be understood.
-Mark
Ardis, Wang Institute
The structure of a system reflects the structure of the
organization that built it.
-Richard
E. Fairley, Wang Institute
A computer program is organized complexity.
-Dijkstra
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
-Albert
Einstein
One person's data is another person's program.
-Guy
L. Steele, Jr. (Tartan Labs)
To iterate is human, to recurse is divine.
-unknown
There are two kinds of people in the world, those who divide the
world into two kinds of people and those who do not.
-unknown
The unexamined life is not worth living.
-Plato
Get your data structures correct first, and the rest of the program will write
itself..
-Davids
Johnson, Assen, The Netherlands
Plan to throw one away, you will anyhow.
-Fred
Brooks, U North Carolina
Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
-H.H.Williams,
Oakland, CA
Memory is necessary for all the operations of reason.
-Blaise
Pascal
Whenever possible, steal code.
-Tom
Duff, Bell Labs
If you can't write it down in English, you can't code it.
-Peter
Halpern, Brooklyn, NY
The sooner you start to code, the longer your program will take.
-Roy
Carlson, U Wisconsin
Once a person has understood the way variables are used in programming,
(s)he has understood the quintessence of programming.
-Dijkstra
Pi seconds is a nanocentury.
-Tom
Duff, Bell Labs
One person's constant is another person's variable.
-Susan
Gerhardt, Microrelation and Computer Tech Corp
The fastest algorithm can frequently be replaced by one that is almost as fast
and much
easier to understand.
-Douglas
W. Jones, U Iowa
Each new user of a system uncovers a new class of bugs.
-Brian
Kernighan
In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.
-Oscar
Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.
The cheapest, fastest, most reliable components of a computer system
are those that are not there.
-Gordon
Bell
A computer program is organized complexity.
-Dijkstra
Fifth Law of Applied Terror:
If you are given an open-book exam, you will foret your book.
Corollary: If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you
live..
-from
motd on a LINUX logon
The best way out is always through.
-Robert
Frost
On debugging a very bad program:
If your program is very bad, do not try to debug it.
Instead, throw it out and start over.
-Walter
Savitch
Don't make the user provide information the system already knows..
-unknown
It is not perfection, but aspiration that is important.
-E.
Roosevelt
You must do what you think you cannot.
-E.
Roosevelt
Our aspirations are our possibilities.
-Robert
Browning
Details count.
-Weinberger,
Bell Labs
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
-Rich
Kulawiec
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience
comes from bad judgment.
-Fred
Brooks, Software Engineer
Always do the hard part first.
If the hard part is impossible, why waste time on the easy part?
Always do the easy part first.
What you think at first is the easy part, often turns out to be the hard part.
Once the easy part is done, you can concentrate all your efforts on the hard
part.
-Al
Schapiro, Bell Labs
Get your data structures correct first, and the rest of the program will write
itself.
-David
Jones
As Will Rogers would have said,
'There is no such thing as a free variable.'
-from
motd on a LINUX logon
Electricity travels a foot in a nanosecond.
-Commodore
Grace Murray Hopper
Less than 10% of the code has to do with the ostensible purpose of the system;
the rest deals with input-output, data validation, data structure maintenance,
and
other housekeeping.
-Mary
Shaw, CMU
I have never let my schooling interfere with my
education.
-Mark
Twain
Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
-Sun
Tzu
It has become appallingly obvious that our
technology has exceeded our humanity.
-Albert
Einstein
More quotes are always appreciated. If you have one, and would like to share
it, please send it
to me. Thanks! -Jennifer Seitzer. seitzer@udayton.edu