Questions about what influential or famous people have said about programming.
202
votes
17answers
65k views
Torvalds' quote about good programmer
Accidentally I've stumbled upon the following quote by Linus Torvalds:
"Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about
data structures and their relationships."
I've ...
13
votes
4answers
965 views
What did Bill Gosper mean by saying a data structure is just a stupid programming language?
There's a quotation by Ralph William Gosper, Jr that says:
A data structure is just a stupid programming language.
What did he mean by this? Alas, all I can find in Google about it is ...
9
votes
1answer
803 views
Dijkstra quote on object-orientation? [closed]
I came across the following supposed Dijkstra quote on object-orientation
Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California
However even my ...
3
votes
1answer
244 views
Who said “Every time I fire a linguist my system improves” about machine translation and does he now work on Google Translate? [closed]
There is a quote about machine translation that I thought was famous but I'm having trouble pinning down just who said it and when, and what the exact wording was. Here is one version:
"Every time ...
31
votes
7answers
3k views
What did Bjarne Stroustrup mean by his characterization of C and C++?
There's a quotation by Bjarne Stroustrup that says:
C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.
I've often come across this ...
13
votes
6answers
1k views
What does Tim Peters mean by “complex is better than complicated”?
In Tim Peters's poem "The Zen of Python" (PEP 20), there is a line that goes:
Complex is better than complicated.
I like the theme of the poem, but this particular line has always vexed me. What ...
26
votes
24answers
4k views
Absolute statements in IT that are wrong [closed]
I was recently in a discussion about the absolute statement "It costs more in programming time to optimise software than it costs to throw hardware at a problem".
The general thought (of which I ...
5
votes
1answer
284 views
Source of this quote about code reusage? [closed]
does someone know where this quote comes from? I don't know it literally, but I know what is is about. Something like:
Writing code more than once is a waste
of energy and creativity.
I think ...
4
votes
1answer
284 views
Source for “Programmers combine like resistors in parallel” [closed]
What is the origin (reference, time, author) of the following quote? For instance, is it from a book?
Programmers combine like resistors in parallel.
It may be by Gerry Jay Sussman, and I can ...
34
votes
10answers
3k views
What does the Jamie Zawinski's quotation about regular expressions mean?
In a message to comp.emacs.xemacs, Jamie Zawinski once said:
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.
I've always ...
42
votes
11answers
3k views
What did Linus Torvalds mean by his quotation about portability?
In a debate with Andrew Tanenbaum over microkernel vs. monolithic operating system architecture, Linus Torvalds said,
Portability is for people who cannot write new programs.
What did he mean by ...
22
votes
12answers
3k views
What did Alan Perlis mean regarding the ways to write error-free programs?
There's a quotation by Alan J. Perlis that says:
There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.
I recently heard this quote from my friend, and was unable to ...
