Quotes About Programming

Compact code was inherently good since it consumed less internal memory. Consisting of slivers of silicon chips called DRAM ("dynamic-random-access-memories"), internal memory was like a gas tank. The larger the tank, the farther the car would go. The smaller the operating program, the more gas was left for all other programs. Because

In programming terms the piece of the operating system that sustained activity when all else failed was the kernel. It protected itself by imposing certain restrictions on applications, the most important being that only it, and never the applications, directed the hardware. The

Most code writers were like gifted athletes; they learned by doing and could not explain their actions. They just did it. This method, while fine for getting started, often hampered efforts at making code faster, which required unblinking self-analysis. "The secret to optimizing speed" he said, "is to ask yourself, 'What does this code actually need to do? What's the least work I can do to solve this problem?' " All

Coming from the field of aviation, where mundane errors could cost lives, he was exact. For all these reasons, Dunie was drawn to testing, the grubby and anonymous side of programming.

The practice of writing code in C++ continually upset Cutler because it created so much confusion and inefficiency.

The programmer seemed to be a throwback to an earlier age of handicrafts, when each maker put a distinctive stamp on what were functionally the same products. Well rewarded, the programmer's work was judged harshly.

Programming "was just the most bizarre situation, because you're used to doing something and thinking you've done it right," he later said. "But it isn't right. You just don't notice it isn't right. On a computer there is no consolation in discovering you're almost right. Almost means you're still just wrong." Even

In 1951, Grace Murray Hopper, a mathematician with the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Ordnance Naval Reserve, conceived of a program called a compiler, which translated a programmer's instructions into the strings of ones and zeroes, or machine language, that ultimately controlled the computer. In principle, compilers seemed just the thing to free programmers from the tyranny of hardware and the mind-numbing binary code. Hopper

He knew what he was experiencing was a basic error in programming, and he wished he could open up his brain and delete the bad code. Unfortunately, the human brain is every bit as closed a system as a Mac.

Sam knew the foot was gone. He could see it was gone. He knew what he was experiencing was a basic error in programming, and he wished he could open up his brain and delete the bad code. Unfortunately, the human brain is every bit as closed a system as a Mac.

What Jacob and Monod had discovered, in essence, was that each gene acts like a single line in a computer program.

American television really is pathetic.

If multiple threads access the same mutable state variable without appropriate synchronization, your program is broken. There are three ways to fix it: Don't share the state variable across threads; Make the state variable immutable; or Use synchronization whenever accessing the state variable.

Stateless objects are always thread-safe.

Static synchronized methods use the Class object for the lock.)

Immutable objects are always thread-safe.

Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.

Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you are as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.

Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?

Don't comment bad code—rewrite it.

C is not a big language, and it is not well served by a big book.

Nevertheless, C retains the basic philosophy that programmers know what they are doing; it only requires that they state their intentions explicitly.

The Elements of Programming Style (with P. J. Plauger)