Code quotes
From Motley Bytes Wiki
Contents
F_Terry_Baker
Code Library
“The most important of these is a development support library which encourages the visibility and manageability of the product, as well as reduces clerical effort on the part of the programmers. The library is typically maintained and operated by a programming librarian who serves to control the programming assets and to provide the necessary services for both programmers and management. As a result of its use, the entire project is maintained in a centralized, up-to-date, visible form which makes its status immediately apparent to code-competent software managers and makes it possible for programmers to answer their questions directly without relying on others.”
- Source: Baker, F. T. (1975). Software Management Through Improved Programming Technology. ACM ’75: Proceedings of the 1975 Annual Conference, 286–287. https://doi.org/10.1145/800181.810346
- Keywords: Programming_quotes Productivity_quotes Library_quotes Source_Code_quotes Important_quotes Development_quotes Support_quotes Encourage_quotes Visible_quotes Management_quotes Product_quotes Reduce_quotes Clerical_quotes Effort_quotes Part_quotes Programmer_quotes Typical_quotes Maintain_quotes Operate_quotes Librarian_quotes Serve_quotes Control_quotes Asset_quotes Provide_quotes Service_quotes Necessary_quotes Result_quotes Use_quotes Entire_quotes Project_quotes Centralize_quotes Up_to_date_quotes Form_quotes Make_quotes Status_quotes Immediate_quotes Apparent_quotes Code_quotes Competent_quotes Software_quotes Manager_quotes Possible_quotes Answer_quotes Question_quotes Direct_quotes Rely_quotes
Robert_N_Britcher
Lines of Code
“...programmers abhor the line of code. When managers speak of it, programmers quicken their step. Most of them know that the line of code is as central to the meaning of a program as the period is to the meaning of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.”
- Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 50.
Important Development Things
“The single, most important thing is that the individual programmer needs to be given total responsibility and control of the programming, including its function... eliminate project design and review as an exhaustive and rigorous process. Most of the design and review should occur as the program is written. ... Monitor progress on the project by talking to the individual programmers as [code] is being written. ... You must trust developers on the project to create a good product. ... Sometimes there are failures. ... The important thing is to fail quickly so you have time to find another approach. ... Developers must also feel free to say what they think to their supervisor. ... Managers should be the best programmers; ...There should be no overtime pay. ... Use profit-sharing and bonuses to get awesome products. ... Developers should each get their own office. ... Eliminate the dress code. Avoid meetings at all costs. ... Writing software is a lot like writing a book. Almost anyone can write garbage; very few can write a best-seller.”
- Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 155-156.
- Keywords: Importance_quotes Programmer_quotes Responsibility_quotes Control_quotes Programming_quotes Function_quotes Design_quotes Review_quotes Rigorous_quotes Heavy_quotes Methodology_quotes Monitoring_quotes Progress_quotes Project_quotes Communication_quotes Trust_quotes Development_quotes Failure_quotes Quickness_quotes Thinking_quotes Expression_quotes Overtime_quotes Management_quotes Profit_Sharing_quotes Bonus_quotes Product_quotes Excellence_quotes Office_quotes Dress_Code_quotes Meeting_quotes Software_quotes Writing_quotes Garbage_quotes Best_Seller_quotes Compensation_quotes Eliminate_quotes Occur_quotes Coding_quotes Talk_quotes Code_quotes Developer_quotes Create_quotes Good_quotes Say_quotes Think_quotes Supervisor_quotes Manager_quotes Best_quotes Awesome_quotes Book_quotes
Nigel_Cross
Designerly Ways
"I identified five aspects of designerly ways of knowing: Designers tackle ‘ill-defined’ problems. Their mode of problem-solving is ‘solution-focused’. Their mode of thinking is ‘constructive’. They use ‘codes’ that translate abstract requirements into concrete objects. They use these codes to both ‘read’ and ‘write’ in ‘object languages’."
- Source: Cross, N. (1982). Designerly ways of knowing. Design Studies, 3(4), 221–227. https://doi.org/10.1016/0142-694X(82)90040-0 .
Edsger_Wybe_Dijkstra
Lines of Code
“My point today is that, if we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as 'lines produced' but as 'lines spent': the current conventional wisdom is so foolish as to book that count on the wrong side of the ledger.”
- Source: Dijkstra (1988) On the cruelty of really teaching computing science (EWD1036). Retrieved 2022 from http://www.cs.utexas.edu
/users /EWD /transcriptions /EWD10xx /EWD1036.html
Sylvester_James_Gates
Strange Codes
“In my research I found this very strange thing, I was driven to error-correcting codes —they’re what make browsers work. So why were they in the equations I was studying about quarks and electrons and supersymmetry? This brought me to the stark realization that I could no longer say people like Max [Tegmark] are crazy.”
- Source: Sylvester James Gates quoted in in the article "Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?" written by Clara Moskowitz published by the magazine "Scientific America" on 2016-04-07. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/ on 2024-02-22.
Hans_Hüttel
Chatbots and Programmers
“Even if chatbots should become a useful tool for programmers, their existence cannot mean the end of programming. It may well be the case that this combination of a built-in repository of code examples and the ability to easily retrieve code examples based on it can be used for generating ideas and for forms of ‘pair programming’.”
- Source: Written by Hans Hüttel in the journal article entitled “On Program Synthesis and Large Language Models”, in Communications of the ACM, volume 68, number 1, 2025-01. DOI:10.1145/3680410.
- Keywords: Chatbot_quotes Useful_quotes Tool_quotes Programmer_quotes Existence_quotes Mean_quotes End_quotes Programming_quotes Case_quotes Combination_quotes Built-in_quotes Repository_quotes Code_quotes Example_quotes Ability_quotes Easy_quotes Retrieve_quotes Base_quotes Use_quotes Generate_quotes Idea_quotes Form_quotes Pair_quotes
Program Synthesis
“The problem of generating correct program code from a specification is well known in computer science and in fact it is a central one. It is the problem of program synthesis... A lot is already known about the synthesis problem in its various guises and in particular we know it is hard, where ‘hard’ means computationally hard.”
- Source: Written by Hans Hüttel in the journal article entitled “On Program Synthesis and Large Language Models”, in Communications of the ACM, volume 68, number 1, 2025-01. DOI:10.1145/3680410.
David_Kipping
You Are Sentient
“Whether you're a piece of computer code or real. Simulacra or physical. Conscious entities are conscious all the same. You are self-aware. You are sentient.”
- Source: David Kipping from the YouTube “Why You're Probably Not a Simulation”, posted 2020-09-04 in the channel ‘Cool Worlds’. Video offset 32:48. Online at https://youtu.be/HA5YuwvJkpQ (2025).
Robert_M_McClure
Time and Motion Code
“I know of one organisation that attempts to apply time and motion standards to the output of programmers. They judge a programmer by the amount of code he produces. This is guaranteed to produce insipid code”
- Source: Rober M. McClure in a report entitled Software Engineering: Report of a Conference Sponsored by the NATO Science Committee. Chaired by Friedrich Ludwig Bauer. Edited by P. Naur; B. Randell. Conference held 1968-10-07 through 1968-10-11 in Garmisch, Germany. OCLC: 35337842. See http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/index.html ; http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/nato1968.PDF ; https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1102020 ; https://books.google.com/books/about/Software_engineering.html?id=Uc9QAAAAYAAJ . Page 52.
Malcolm_McIlroy
Negative Code
“The real hero of programming is the one who writes negative code.”
- Source: Malcolm McIlroy, spoken during a talk 2009-12-03 at the Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee Linux User Group (DLSLUB).
- Keywords: Hero_quotes Programming_quotes Programmer_quotes Code_quotes Negative_quotes Productivity_quotes
Henry_Louis_Mencken
Morality
“It was morality that burned the books of the ancient sages, and morality that halted the free inquiry of the Golden Age and substituted for it the credulous imbecility of the Age of Faith. It was a fixed moral code and a fixed theology which robbed the human race of a thousand years by wasting them upon alchemy, heretic-burning, witchcraft and sacerdotalism.”
- Source: Written by Henry Louis Mencken in the book 'The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche' published by Unwin in 1908 in London, England.
- Keywords: Morality_quotes Burn_quotes Book_quotes Ancient_quotes Sage_quotes Halt_quotes Freedom_quotes Inquiry_quotes Gold_quotes Age_quotes Credibility_quotes Imbecile_quotes Faith_quotes Code_quotes Fixed_quotes Theology_quotes Rob_quotes Humanity_quotes Year_quotes Alchemy_quotes Witchcraft_quotes Sacerdotalism_quotes Waste_quotes
Ipek_Ozkaya
Hello World Development
“We teach students hello world development, while we should be teaching them how to read millions of lines of code, triage and fix bugs that they have not contributed to and understand the structure and behavior of the software rather than the single class or story card they are responsible for.”
- Source: Ipek Ozkaya, “Application of Large Language Models to Software Engineering Tasks: Opportunities, Risks, and Implications,” in IEEE Software, volume 40, number 3, pages 4-8, May-June 2023, DOI: 10.1109/MS.2023.3248401.
- Keywords: Teach_quotes Student_quotes Hello_quotes Development_quotes Read_quotes Million_quotes Line_quotes Code_quotes Triage_quotes Fix_quotes Bug_quotes Contribute_quotes Understand_quotes Structure_quotes Behavior_quotes Software_quotes Rather_quotes Single_quotes Class_quotes Story_quotes Card_quotes Responsible_quotes
Data as Code
“We need to teach them [software engineers] how to evolve systems to incorporate such [AI] components, and we need to teach them to treat data as code.”
- Source: Ipek Ozkaya, “Application of Large Language Models to Software Engineering Tasks: Opportunities, Risks, and Implications,” in IEEE Software, volume 40, number 3, pages 4-8, May-June 2023, DOI: 10.1109/MS.2023.3248401.
Max_Tegmark
Computer Game
“If I were a character in a computer game, I would also discover eventually that the rules seemed completely rigid and mathematical. That just reflects the computer code in which it was written.”
- Source: Max Tegmark and John Archibald Wheeler; Scientific American, February 2001
