Quotes About Software

Supple design has a profound effect on the ability of software to cope with change and complexity.

Whatever the cause, software that lacks a concept at the foundation of its design is, at best, a mechanism that does useful things without explaining its actions.

If developers don't realize that changing code changes the model, then their refactoring will weaken the model rather than strengthen it.

When we set out to write software, we never know enough.

The goal is that not only can a developer understand what the code does; he or she can also understand why it does what it does and can relate that to the ongoing communication with the domain experts.

You can't send functions:

Here's the short story: functions are objects in JavaScript. In

in JavaScript just about everything is an object underneath, even

the constructor always has a prototype property. More

two forms of the Adapter Pattern: object and class adapters. Class adapters require multiple inheritance. You can implement more

You see, now that we have a prototype, if we add any methods to that prototype, even after we've already created dog objects, all dogs inheriting from the prototype immediately and automatically get this new behavior.

This is not informed consent—it should be called "coercive consent," as the patient is left with little viable or practical alternative. It's just like the software upgrade download, but regarding a much more serious matter.

I'm going to be in technology for a long time.

When I worked as a programmer, that meant eight straight hours of programming without interruption. That was a good day. In contrast, if I was interrupted with questions, process, or—heaven forbid—meetings, I felt bad.

Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch.

Investors are still thinking through the consequences of reinventing the software industry as one with an explicit focus on service rather than closed intellectual property, and will be for some time to come.

CSV (fields separated by commas, double quotes used to escape commas, no continuation lines) is rarely found under Unix.

Transparency is therefore more than an esthetic triumph; it is a victory that will be reflected in lower costs throughout the software's life cycle. 6.2.2

There is a flip side to this. In the Unix world, libraries which are delivered as libraries should come with exerciser programs.

We're proving not only that we can do better software, but that joy is an asset.

Indeed, it seems the prescription for highest software productivity is almost a Zen paradox; if you want the most efficient production, you must give up trying to make programmers produce. Handle their subsistence, give them their heads, and forget about deadlines. To a conventional manager this sounds crazily indulgent and doomed — but it is exactly the recipe with which the open-source culture is now clobbering its competition.

Part of the answer certainly lies in the fact that using software does not decrease its value. Indeed, widespread use of open-source software tends to increase its value, as users fold in their own fixes and features (code patches). In this inverse commons, the grass grows taller when it's grazed upon.

The trend toward democratization of innovation applies to information products such as software and also to physical products. As a quick illustration of the latter, consider the development of high-performance windsurfing techniques and equipment in Hawaii by an informal user group. High-performance windsurfing involves acrobatics such as jumps and flips and turns in

trend toward democratization of innovation applies to information products such as software and also to physical products. As a quick illustration of the latter, consider the development of high-performance windsurfing techniques and equipment in Hawaii