Quotes About Software

Requirements are not architecture. Requirements are not design, nor are they the user interface. Requirements are need.

While software development is immune from almost all physical laws, entropy hits us hard.

There are many factors that can contribute to software rot. The most important one seems to be the psychology, or culture, at work on a project.

we just don't have the time to go chasing after bugs that the automated tests could have found for us. We have to spend our time writing new code—and new bugs.

Most software disasters start out too small to notice, and most project overruns happen a day at a time.

Pragmatic Programmers, however, tend to prefer using tracer bullets.

the real world just won't let us produce much that's truly perfect, particularly not bug-free software. Time, technology, and temperament all conspire against us.

The scope and quality of the system you produce should be specified as part of that system's requirements.

We write code, which communicates our intentions to a machine and documents our thinking for future generations of developers.

A dead program normally does a lot less damage than a crippled one.

There are certain tips and tricks that apply at all levels of software development, ideas that are almost axiomatic, and processes that are virtually universal. However, these approaches are rarely documented as such; you'll mostly find them written down as odd sentences in discussions of design, project management, or coding.

Software defects manifest themselves in a variety of ways, from misunderstood requirements to coding errors.

To confuse everybody, Microsoft never released a Windows 9. Microsoft skipped a version number when moving from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10.

As every barrier to the constraint of individualism is removed - as 'I' and 'my' appear in the names of more and more software applications and IT products - nevertheless today's rampant mimeticism ensures that 'I' and 'my' become less and less differentiated from 'you' and 'yours'...We crave differentiation, and deprived of it we blame the failing institutions that once might have delivered it.

If you're not at all interested in performance, shouldn't you be in the Python room down the hall?)

Software is nothing like construction. Software is innovation. Innovation is difficult—if not impossible—to predict.

There is a lot of interest in the arts, music, theatre, filmmaking, engineering, architecture and software design. I think we have now transitioned the modern-day version of the entrepreneur into the creative economy.

The hardware and the software used in the Breakthrough project will be compatible with other telescopes around the world, so they too can search for intelligent life.

If you like overheads, you'll love PowerPoint.

Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading manuals without the software.

The Apple IIc, with its 128KB of RAM, 125KB floppy drive, word processor, and spreadsheet application, did everything I could imagine a computer doing at the time.

We need a wireless mobile device ecosystem that mirrors the PC/Internet ecosystem, one where the consumers' purchase of network capacity is separate from their purchase of the hardware and software they use on that network. It will take government action, or some disruptive technology or business innovation, to get us there.

Limit use of shareware and public domain software to systems without fixed disks. If you do use them on fixed disks, allocate separate subdirectories... Public domain or shareware software should never be placed in the root directory.

Indeed, the woes of Software Engineering are not due to lack of tools, or proper management, but largely due to lack of sufficient technical competence.