Collected quotes about computers/programming

Premature optimization is the root of all evil in programming. -- C.A.R. Hoare
Fools ignore complexity; pragmatists suffer it; experts avoid it; geniuses remove it. -- Alan Perlis
If you cannot grok the overall structure of a program while taking a shower, you are not ready to code it. -- Richard Pattis
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards. -- Arthur Koestler
The string is a stark data structure and everywhere it is passed there is duplication. It is a perfect vehicle for hiding information. -- Alan J Perlis
C has all the expressive power of two dixie cups and a string. -- Jamie Zawinski
I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind. -- Alan Kay
Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp. -- Philip Greenspun
Perl is like vise grips. You can do anything with it but it is the wrong tool for every job. -- Bruce Eckel
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald Knuth
There are two major products that came out of Berkeley: LSD and BSD. We don't believe this to be a coincidence. -- Jeremy S. Anderson
Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs. Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do. -- Donald Knuth
You're bound to be unhappy if you optimize everything. -- Donald Knuth
To iterate is human, to recurse divine. -- L. Peter Deutsch
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems. -- Jamie Zawinski
It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to Basic; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. -- Edsger Dijkstra
The object-oriented model makes it easy to build up programs by accretion. What this often means, in practice, is that it provides a structured way to write spaghetti code. -- Paul Graham
There are only two things wrong with C++: The initial concept and the implementation. -- Bertrand Meyer
Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how they should solve some problem, they said, "OK, we'll do them both". So the language is too baroque for my taste. -- Donald Knuth
c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */ -- Unknown
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. -- Edsger Dijkstra
Everyone needs computer programming. It will be the way we speak to the servants. -- John McCarthy
The question of whether Machines Can Think [we now know to be] about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim. -- Edsger Dijkstra
The architecture of almost every computer today is designed to optimize the performance of Fortran programs and its operating-system-level sister, C. -- Richard Gabriel
You cannot teach beginners top-down programming, because they don't know which end is up. -- C. A. R. Hoare
Simplicity and elegance are unpopular because they require hard work and discipline to achieve and education to be appreciated. -- Edsger Dijkstra
It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical? -- Alan Perlis
The last good thing written in C was Franz Schubert's Symphony Number 9. -- Erwin Dieterich

28 Great Programming Quotes that never saw daylight
Never go beyond or "extend" standards like ISO-xxxx or ANSI-something
Never have more than at most 5 developers on the same project, if the project is too big for 5 developers then the project is in fact not one project but several smaller ones.
Never listen to "astronaut architects", if a developer can sit in one room and deliver "design plans" for more than five days straight without aching for getting some coding done either make him a coach, a conference speaker or fire him! He's never going to be able to deliver PRODUCTS anyway!
If a meeting can't be held while physically standing then the agenda was probably not important enough to need discussing anyway. (Ref; eXtreme Programming/Standup Meetings)
If you don't have at least two developers per computer while developing then you're wasting hardware. (Ref; eXtreme Programming/Pair Programming)
When design is finished the plan sheets makes a great bonfire! (Ref; eXtremet Programming/Planning)
"We choose not to do Unit Testing since it gives us higher profit not to!" (Random Consultancy Company about Unit Testing)
I like to manually follow "buggy deployment lists" instead of having automated deployments since it gives such a rush trying to figure out if I did point 68a or point 149h wrong!
It's easier to have a fish glued to our forehead then to do logging, logging is for sissies anyway!
Then a couple of "famous last words"
We don't need to test, it'll probably work anyway!
Pair Programming is a waste of Human Resources!
We don't use eXtreme Programming since it's so "extreme"... (personal favourite)
Building software is just like building a bridge, waterfall has worked for bridges so why not for software...
Premature testing is the root of all evil. (Ref; Donald Knuth)
What the heck, the standard will probably finish up before our product goes live, let's just implement the features we think it'll contain in the end!
Sure a square is a special case of a rectangle! (Ref; Liskow Substitution Principle)
Let's expose Web Services, SOAP and WSDL from this Database server, that'll give them something to think about!
Stateless programming is for sissies anyway, let's create Notification Services in the core of this Database server...
Let's break the standard since we're so big that they're gonna be forced to follow us instead of Vice Versa anyway...
640MB of RAM is more than enough for all end users!
The world only needs 5 computers, one for each continent!