To end 2010 on a lighthearted note, Jun Auza at TechSource has posted his favorite 50 programming quotes of all time. (I spotted this originally over at Confessions of a Science Librarian.) There are some gems in the comments as well. Here are some of my favorites from the list and comments:
35. “For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless. And then it occurred to me that 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. They are, in short, a perfect match.”– Bill Bryson31. “Good design adds value faster than it adds cost.”– Thomas C. Gale10. “People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones.”– Donald Knuth2. “Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.”– Martin Golding(from the comments) Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking process — an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an enormous amount of hard work. However, a certain amount of unpredictable and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference between adequacy and excellence.
–(From the Unix “fortune” program.)
Happy new year, dear readers! May your code always compile, your bugs be easily fixed, and your regular expressions parse correctly on the first try. See you in 2011!
This is what a computer scientist looks like 