

Great programming quotes - lispygem
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/58640/great-programming-quotes-closed

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frossie
For those who didn't make it past the first page, this one's new on me and
became an instant favourite:

 _You can stand on the shoulders of giants OR a big enough pile of dwarfs,
works either way._

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endergen
The best hands down quote in my opinion is:

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and
naming things. -Phil Karlton

~~~
fizx
I like the variant:

"There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation,
naming things, and off-by-one errors."

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hazmattron
_Linux is only free if your time has no value_

True, but in my experience it's a worthy investment of valuable time. I spent
three years using Linux distros, and though I use OSX now, I'm much more
comfortable with general system administration than I would have been
otherwise.

~~~
Goosey
The irritating thing about that argument is it comes with the built-in
implication that you already know something else (Windows/OSX/whatever). It is
basically complaining about learning-curve, right?

The other irritating thing is it usually 'means' general computer usage, but
as hackers we need to choose OS's for things like server deployments,
development environments, etc. In my experience when you start mixing in
enough complex/worthwhile applications of the OS it becomes a wash in time
consumption between *nix/Windows (since you are using the bulk of your time
learning application-level things)

So if your doing something 'worthwhile' might as well go with the option that
only costs 1 of the assets rather than three (time, money, and freedom)

~~~
hazmattron
You make an excellent point about the application-level learning, I actually
noticed myself that I was spending a vast amount of time just configuring my
OS and apps -- time which I could have spent actually producing things. This
was my primary justification for buying my Mac, though I still think I learned
a lot using Linux that I wouldn't have otherwise ...patience and perseverance,
among other things.

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10ren
_There need be no real danger of it ever becoming a drudge, for any processes
that are quite mechanical may be turned over to the machine itself._ \- Alan
Turing

Douglas Adams' version of Hoare's _make it so simple that there are obviously
no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are
no obvious deficiencies._ :

 _their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial
design flaws._ <http://www.otostopcu.org/yazi/h2g2/b4c36.php>

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arethuza
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it
so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to
make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first
method is far more difficult."

C. A. R. Hoare

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zalew
"Once a new technology starts rolling, if you're not part of the steamroller,
you're part of the road." - Stewart Brand

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jackowayed
It's pretty lame that they closed this question just because it doesn't fit
the Stack Overflow model and doesn't have a right answer.

Part of a moderator's job is to use judgment and ignore rules when it makes
sense to do so. This is a great thread, and closing it (even after 600 posts)
seems like a bad decision.

~~~
m_myers
It is closed mainly because with 600+ answers, people weren't checking for
duplicate quotes anymore. Keeping it open wouldn't really serve any purpose at
this point.

(At least, that's what I would think. I've only been on the job for two days.)

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bitsai
A collection of great programming quotes from Alan Perlis (first recipient of
the Turing Award):

<http://www.cs.yale.edu/quotes.html>

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Alex63
My favorite comes from Gerry Weinberg: _If builders built buildings the way
programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would
destroy civilization._

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jdp
Another sizeable quotes collection: <http://quotes.cat-v.org/programming/>

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igorgue
Loved this one:

Hofstadter's Law:

It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account
Hofstadter's Law.

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tszming
Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their
motivations?

\- Steve Jobs

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GreenMan
There's another decent collection of quotes here:

<http://www.bobarcher.org/software/programming_quotes.html>

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balding_n_tired
In Jon Bentley's long-ago "Programming Pearls" column in CACM he had at least
one "Computer Science by Bumper Sticker" column. You can find one in the
collection_Programming Pearls_ .

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st3fan
One of my favorite code comments comes from qmail: /* NFS Dorks */

