Jeff Atwood just posted his Favorite Programming Quote:
My all-time favorite programming quote has to be this Nathaniel Borenstein bon mot:
It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter.
It’s too perfect. Never have programmers been more neatly summarized.
And he also gave a list of great quotes sites:
- Programming Quotations
- Quotes about Computer Languages
- Quotes about Programmers
- Computer Programming Quotes (good, but many unsourced)
- Programming – Wikiquote
Here are a few of my favorites:
Theory is when you know something, but it doesn’t work. Practice is when something works, but you don’t know why. Programmers combine theory and practice: Nothing works and they don’t know why.
Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.
Larry Wall
One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs.
Robert Firth
Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random numbers is, of course, in a state of sin.
John von Neumann
There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new…
Niccolo Macchiavelli, The Prince
As an aside, Bill Clinton quotes this in his Autobiography
Writing code has a place in the human hierarchy worth somewhere above grave robbing and beneath managing. (Gerald Weinberg)
Writing code has a place in the human hierarchy worth somewhere above grave robbing and beneath managing. (Gerald Weinberg)
Random Musings 