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I will automatically up vote any thing from Bill Bryson. As for quotes, what about this definition:
Compiler: a piece of software that translates source code (which computers can't understand) into object code (which humans can't understand). Therefore, the chief mechanism by which humans and computers fail to understand each other. -
Not a programming quote but applies
"Never memorise something you can look up" Albert Einstein -
"Linux is a user-friendly OS. It's just very picky about who its friends are" -dunno who
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"I don't care what OS you use, I don't care what editor/IDE you use, what I care is that you write good code and know when to admit you have fucked up."
-my ex-boss -
elfico20218yProgramming styles are like assholes. Everybody has one but nobody likes the another person's
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"A programmer is a person who fixes a problem that you don't know you have, in a way you don't understand" -unknown
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Although it'll be considered pretty radical by some people, I try to live by this one (using as much as possible open software) every day:
Proprietary software tends to have malicious features. The point is with a proprietary program, when the users don't have the source code, we can never tell. So you must consider every proprietary program as potential malware - Richard Stallman
Also a funny one imo:
When you say 'I wrote a program that crashed Windows,' people just stare at you blankly and say 'Hey, I got those with the system, for free.' - Linus Torvalds -
cjaro6768y"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila." - Mitch Ratcliffe
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The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made.
- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) -
retnikt68948yNot related to programming, but "if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room." - many people, but originally Richard Tirendi.
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This is a bit off topic, and I'm not as 'seasoned', in fancy quotes as many people here, so I just wanted to add to the conversation by saying how interesting @kurtr 's quote was. I read a book called CODE, an absolutely amazing book by Charles Petzold that takes you from history of the computer, how to make a simple computer, onto ICs and etc. Kurtr's quote interested me because, in the book, it gives an example of some assembly programming and how all a computer can do is ridiculously simple things; move a value from reg a to alu, or move a value from ram into the alu. So, the quote really resonates with me on how stupid computers really are, and what programmers do to make up for that stupidity. Anyway, sorry for blabbing on and contributing absolutely nothing to the discussion.
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darkness7348yComputer science has as much to do with computers as astronomy has to do with telescopes.
-Edsger Dijkstra -
"Pretend the next person looking at your code is an axe-wielding psychopath." - Phil Japikse
(SOLID Design Patterns, Channel9) -
Gophyr19228yMy favorite (it always reminds me to automate everything):
"Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script." -
"Talk is cheap, show me the code." - Linus
"Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand." - Martin Fowler
Second one is really hard for me to follow.😶 -
"Code should be written for humans to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute" - Harold Abelson
Favourite Programming Quote - Whats yours?
"A computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things." - Bill Bryson
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favourite quote