Programmeringssitater

«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.»

«Premature optimization is the root of all evil.»

«Languages shape the way we think, or don’t.»

«Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.»

«[1949] As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn’t as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.»

«If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.»

«On two occasions I have been asked, – ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.»

«Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.»

«No matter how slick the demo is in rehearsal, when you do it in front of a live audience, the probability of a flawless presentation is inversely proportional to the number of people watching, raised to the power of the amount of money involved.»

«A computer program does what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do.»

<Sonium> someone speak python here?
<lucky> HHHHHSSSSSHSSS
<lucky> SSSSS
<Sonium> the programming language

«I’m taking a break from programming and trying to escape the world of geekness, and then Winamp brings up ‘Norah Jones – Pointer Song’. God damn it, leave me alone!»

«Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.»

«Code never lies, comments sometimes do.»

<@Logan> I spent a minute looking at my own code by accident.
<@Logan> I was thinking "What the hell is this guy doing?"

«There are two ways of constructing a software design: one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.»

«Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small trivial project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you’ll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision. So start small, and think about the details. Don’t think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn’t solve some fairly immediate need, it’s almost certainly over-designed. And don’t expect people to jump in and help you. That’s not how these things work. You need to get something half-way useful first, and then others will say ‘hey, that almost works for me’, and they’ll get involved in the project.»

«Hofstadter’s Law: it always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.»

<Sigurd> a sprite is anything not static
<SRElysian> a sprite is a variable object
<SRElysian> be it 2d or 3d
<TorMuck> a sprite is a fucking soda
<TorMuck> you god damn geekass bastards

«One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code.»

«Some people, when confronted with a problem, think ‘I know, I’ll use regular expressions.’ Now they have two problems.»

«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.»

«The problem with object-oriented languages is they’ve got all this implicit environment that they carry around with them. You wanted a banana, but what you got was a gorilla holding the banana and the entire jungle.»

«Screwed-up initial design together with endless reinvention is why IT is such a disaster. C not good enough for you? Let’s have C++, or this other version of C++, or this one. No, let’s reimplement in Java. Or C#. Or Python. Perl. Ruby. SGML no good? … Just reinvent everything once again, use XML (it must work, it’s so big and complicated by now – how can anything that big not work), and we’ll all get rich this time. Right. Sure. I’ll just do something else, if you don’t mind.»

«I have actually programmed a fair bit in Perl, like I have C++ code published with my name on it. Other things I have tried and have no intention to do again if I can at all avoid it include smoking, getting drunk enough to puke and waste the whole next day with hang-over, breaking a leg in a violent car crash, getting mugged in New York City, and travel with Aeroflot.»

«A physicist once said, ‘If you think you understand C++, you don’t understand C++,’ or something to that effect.»

<djahandarie> we ain't here to do e-c-e
<djahandarie> we're here to do c-s-e on the w-e-b
<djahandarie> listen to me spit these rhymes
<djahandarie> while i program lines
<djahandarie> and commit web accessibility crimes
<djahandarie> word, son
<http402> You talk like you're big on these I-Net kicks,
<http402> But your shit flows slower than a two-eighty-six.
<http402> I'm tracking down hosts and nmap scans,
<http402> While Code Igniter's got you wringing your hands.
<http402> Cut the crap rap,
<http402> Or I'll run ettercap,
<http402> Grab your AIM chat,
<http402> N' send a PC bitch-slap!
<http402> peace
<djahandarie> you're talkin 'bout down hosts and nmap scans
<djahandarie> while i got other plans
<djahandarie> you're at your new job, but you can't even do it right
<djahandarie> you just create a plight with your http rewrites
<djahandarie> i've been on the web since the age of three
<djahandarie> you just got on directly off the bus from mississippi
<djahandarie> respect yo' elders, bitch
<http402> You've been webbin' since three, but still ain't grown up,
<http402> Gotta update your config and send the brain a SIGHUP.
<http402> You say you're that old? No wonder you're slow!
<http402> You're knocking at the door while I run this show!
<http402> Elders my ass, your shit's still in school,
<http402> Hunt and pecking at the keyboard like a spaghetti-damned fool,
<http402> Rim-riffing your hard drive like a tool,
<http402> Face it. I rule.
<djahandarie> i erase my harddrives with magnets (bitch)
<djahandarie> all you can do is troll on the fagnets
<djahandarie> and son, my brain's wrapped in a nohup
<djahandarie> it wont be hurt by the words you throwup
<djahandarie> dont mind me while i emerge my ownage
<djahandarie> while you're still over there apt-getting your porridge
<djahandarie> you say i'm still in school
<djahandarie> but the fact is that i know the rule
<djahandarie> cuz you need to go back to grade three
<djahandarie> and you better plea, that they take sucky graduates from c-s-e
<http402> Time to bend over and apply a patch,
<http402> Your brain's throwing static like a CD with a scratch.
<http402> Your connection got nuked and you've met your match.
<http402> You run a single process like a VAX with a batch.
<http402> I'd pass the torch to a real winner
<http402> But it'd just scorch a while-loop spinner
<http402> Caught in a loop that you can't escape,
<http402> I run clock cycles around your words and flows,
<http402> Cuz your rhyme is like a PS fan: it blows,
<http402> Your water-cooled lyrics leak and it shows,
<http402> Take your ass back to alt.paid.for.windows.
<djahandarie> Good god, I can't even respond to that. :p
<djahandarie> You win haha
 http402 takes a bow*

«By almost any definition, closed is a closed system.»

«I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.»

«I’m reminded of the day my daughter came in, looked over my shoulder at some Perl 4 code, and said, ‘What is that, swearing?’»