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Quotes
Words I Keep Returning To
A collection of quotes that have stuck, mostly about software, thinking, and the nature of complex systems.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
, Alan Kay
Premature optimisation is the root of all evil.
, Donald Knuth
Misquoted constantly. The full quote includes a vital qualifier about the critical 3%.
There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.
, Phil Karlton (and a thousand variants)
Make it work, make it right, make it fast, in that order.
, Kent Beck
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
, Alan Kay
On how mental models from one paradigm constrain how you see all the others.
Simple things should be simple. Complex things should be possible.
, Alan Kay
You cannot teach beginners top-down programming, because they don't know which end is up.
, C.A.R. Hoare
Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.
, Harold Abelson
From SICP. The most important sentence ever written about software engineering, in my view.
Talk is cheap. Show me the code.
, Linus Torvalds
It is much easier to write a new program than to understand an old one.
, Programming folklore
Why so much code is rewritten when it should be read.
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
, Edward V. Berard
The function of good software is to make the complex appear to be simple.
, Grady Booch