#code quotes

... the cost of adding a feature isn't just the time it takes to code it. The cost also includes the addition of an obstacle to future expansion. ... The trick is to pick the features that don't fight each other.

Please don't fall into the trap of believing that I am terribly dogmatical about [the goto statement]. I have the uncomfortable feeling that others are making a religion out of it, as if the conceptual problems of programming could be solved by a single trick, by a simple form of coding discipline!

Writing code ... is not an exercise in manliness.

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.

First do it, then do it right, then do it fast.

Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

For the time being, programming is a consumer job, assembly line coding is the norm, and what little exciting stuff is being performed is not going to make it compared to the mass-marketed cräp sold by those who think they can surf on the previous half-century's worth of inventions forever.

It's OK to figure out murder mysteries, but you shouldn't need to figure out code. You should be able to read it.

If the code doesn't bother you, don't bother it.

Whenever possible, steal code.

Reusability of components, objects, code, stuff, ...whatever...remains the most unfulfilled promise offered by any software methodology that has reared its pretty head since Von Neuman.

Any language from which code can be generated automatically is a programming language.

Lines of Code is not a measure of effort It is the measure of Tape Archives used in 1968

Don't wait until you have a bug to step through your code.

Real programmers don't comment their code. It was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.

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.

Programmers are tools for converting caffeine into code.

Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other way around.

Pasting code from the internet into production code is like chewing gum found in the street.

The difference between a tolerable programmer and a great programmer is not how many programming languages they know, and it’s not whether they prefer Python or Java. It’s whether they can communicate their ideas. By persuading other people, they get leverage. By writing clear comments and technical specs, they let other programmers understand their code, which means other programmers can use and work with their code instead of rewriting it. Absent this, their code is worthless. By writing clear technical documentation for end users, they allow people to figure out what their code is supposed to do, which is the only way those users can see the value in their code. There’s a lot of wonderful, useful code buried on sourceforge somewhere that nobody uses because it was created by programmers who don’t write very well (or don’t write at all), and so nobody knows what they’ve done and their brilliant code languishes.

I won’t hire a programmer unless they can write, and write well, in English. If you can write, wherever you get hired, you’ll soon find that you’re getting asked to write the specifications and that means you’re already leveraging your influence and getting noticed by management.