God help us, we’re in the hands of engineers.
The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
Computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and especially because it produces objects of beauty. A programmer who subconsciously views himself as an artist will enjoy what he does and will do it better.
Programming is the art of telling another human being what one wants the computer to do.
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
To be a hacker – when I use the term – is somebody who is creative and does wonderful things.
Beyond basic mathematical aptitude, the difference between good programmers and great programmers is verbal ability.
Our job as the game creators or developers – the programmers, artists, and whatnot – is that we have to kind of put ourselves in the user’s shoes. We try to see what they’re seeing, and then make it, and support what we think they might think.
Programming allows you to think about thinking, and while debugging you learn learning.
A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
LISP programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing.
C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity.
The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it.
C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success.
A language that doesn’t have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do.
Programming is not a science. Programming is a craft.
Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as breathing, and as productive. It ought to be as free.
When done well, software is invisible.