Best programming and hacker quotes. Ever.
Curated by fellow hackers Jarmo Pertman & Andri Möll
Prolonged contact with the computer turns mathematicians into clerks and vice versa.
Alan J. Perlis
The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.
Edsger Dijkstra
I’ve finally learned what ‘upward compatible’ means. It means we get to keep all our old mistakes.
Dennie van Tassel
Perspective is worth 80 I.Q. points
Alan Kay
I'll try to be nicer if you try to be smarter.
Assaf Nitzan
UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity.
Dennis Ritchie
All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer.
IBM Manual, 1925
90% of everything is crap
Sturgeon's Revelation
If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
Alan J. Perlis
It is not a language's weakness but its strengths that control the gradient of its change: Alas, a language never escapes its embryonic sac.
Alan J. Perlis