Programmer's quotes
"The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to
constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at
every appearance, the variable pi can be given that value with
a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the
constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should
the value of pi change."
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox computers
"The C Programming Language - A language which combines the
flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language."
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving
to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe
trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
-- Rich Cook
"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it
harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg."
-- Bjarne Stroustrup
"I've never met a human being who would want to read 17,000 pages of
documentation, and if there was, I'd kill him to get him out of the gene pool."
-- Joseph Costello, President of Cadence
"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore,
be regarded as a criminal offense."
-- E. W. Dijkstra
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to
students that [sic] have had prior exposure to BASIC; as potential
programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
-- Dijkstra
"A system admin's life is a sorry one. The only advantage he has over
Emergency Room doctors is that malpractice suits are rare. On the other
hand, ER doctors never have to deal with patients installing new
versions of their own innards!"
-- Michael O'Brien
