When I am not coding I am reading about code. Here is a short list of memerable programming quotes I read over the past year about the science and art of software development. Over this last year, my interest and reading habits have been related to software development, team leadership, and entrepreneurship and this quotes reflects those topics.
What we learned over several years is that the registry in the data center is an evil, evil thing.
Sriram Krishnan
No code is faster than no code.
Merb Core Tenent
Rails is the best framework for the 80/20 rule out there. It will get you 80% there faster than any framework, but it will fight you tooth and nail for the remaining 205.
Ezra Zygmuntowicz
Software: do you write it like a book, grow it like a plant, accrete it like a pearl, or construct it like a building?
Jeff Atwood
I will not break my back or my sanity on Windows troubleshooting any more.
Jamis Buck
Premature parameterization is the square root of all evil.
Sean McGrath
If you can’t be a chick magnet, be a porn magnet.
Zed Shaw
Piracy is a natural state of affairs for users with lots of time and no money.
Jeff Atwood
Every time DRM prevents legitimate playback, a pirate gets his wings.
Nathan Bowers
What ruby does offer is a more intuitive way of coding. Its form is simple. It’s full of grace. Ruby is succinct. It’s not the messiah of languages though it attracts many messiah-figures and their fanboy prototypes.
Renae Blair
I do believe I have post-traumatic Java syndrome.
Renae Blair
The thesis explicit in Crockford’s book (JavaScript: The Good Parts) and implicit in Conway’s (Perl Best Practices) is that the best way to use a language is to carve out a subset of its functionality that is superior to the whole smorgasbord you have on offer. It’s how people use natural languages, and it’s how a lot of good programmers use programming languages as well.
Giles Bowkett
Frameworks like Rails make you fast, and Sinatra makes even Rails look slow.
Giles Bowkett
The goal is not to establish a far-off goal and find a way to hit it, but to establish a series of tiny, immediate goals that keep you forever moving forward. Aristotle argued that virtue was mostly a matter of having good habits; Lao-Tzu tells us that the voyage of a million miles starts with a single step. So the key is to get moving and keep moving.
Giles Bowkett
Instead of charging the going rate of $250, we decided to charge $350. Why not? I figured we could establish ourselves as having the premium product simply by charging a premium. In the absence of additional information, consumers often use prices to judge products.
Joel Spolsky
That’s another flaw with performance-based rewards: They are easy for one of your competitors to top.
Joel Spolsky
Longevity is a big part of credibility.
Jason Calacanis
People’s reputations are made in the bad times more than the good times.
Jason Calacanis
If you can’t sell your product, it’s not a product–it’s a hobby.
Jason Calacanis
I fear — as far as I can tell — that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training.
Alan Kay
Agile is not just about speed.
Jack Milunsky
I can’t choose whether someone is offended by my actions. I can choose whether I care.
Martin Fowler
Would you pay $100 an hour for an untrained accountant? Because if your consulting rate is $100 an hour and you do your own accounting, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Chris Wanstrath
So, what does it mean for teaching and learning programming when the solution to every beginner problem is available on the Internet?
Cay Horstmann
One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code.
Ken Thompson
Deleted code is debugged code.
Jeff Sickel
Good software architects are like condoms… bad software architects are like Viagra.
Sidan
Nobody hates software more than software developers.
Jeff Atwood
Not all liquidity events are created equal.
Brandon Watson
Not all code needs to be a factory, some of it can just be origami.
_why
If you program and want any longevity to your work, make a game. All else recycles, but people rewrite architectures to keep games alive.
_why
I think Ruby is the next best thing after sliced bread and Common Lisp.
ivanstojic
The best way to market yourself is to be remarkable.
Chad Fowler
I rather raise nerds than raise gangsters.
The RZA
Not having a clear goal leads to death by a thousand compromises.
Mark Pincus
Chase the vision, not the money.
Tony Hsieh
Those that say it can’t be done, shouldn’t interrupt those that are actually doing it.
Michael Arrington
What it comes down to is that Rails developers are just that: Rails developers. They’re not software developers, at least not most of them. … Their framework dictates how their systems are designed instead of the problems the systems are designed to solve.
Samuel Tesla
If you are single and you want to do startups, stay single. Stay single for a while, startups can be all consuming 24/7 suck you dry.
Steve Blank
You can’t build everything and there is no more a killer feature. Everyone has a different killer feature.
Matt Mullenweg
I am the unhappiest WordPress user in the world, I think it sucks.
Matt Mullenweg
The biggest motivation is not the money but the impact.
Matt Mullenweg
If I’m on the titanic I want to be steering.
Matt Mullenweg
You don’t want to be the site that people should use, you want to be the site they can’t stop using.
Roelof Botha
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
Martin Golding
One man’s feature is another man’s complexity.
Juixe TechKnow
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6 Comments
That’s nice collection. My favorite is :
“No code is faster than no code.” – Merb Core Tenent
I enjoyed it!
(Hmm…, eh…, it’s not “memerable”. It’s “memorable” … OK…)
Some of them are pretty funny but right on the money
Great compilation
@Vishnu – memerable are memes that are memorable as opposed to memos that are memorable.
Nice compilation.
I couldn’t stop laughing at the second last one. Some how, it is so true and such a good way to go. It also show that even psychopath can be useful. ;-)
It seems we are inspired by, and subscribe to the opinions of many of the same people. Cheers to a great list of quotes.
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