Computer Programming Quotes

“Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.”
― Abelson, Sussman, and Sussman

“I suggested that someone grab Bill Gates and get him to install a new operating system, but apparently he's not a demon" At Reaver's eye roll she nodded. "Right? I was surprised too.”
― Larissa Ione, Reaver

“If I were king, I would redress an abuse which cuts back, as it were, one half of human kind. I would have women participate in all human rights, especially those of the mind.”
― Émilie Du Châtelet, Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings

“A computer program does what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do.”
― Arthur Bloch, Murphy's Law and Other Reasons Why Things Go Wrong

“In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, "to be, or not to be, that is the question." In the 21st century, "to code, or not to code, that is the challenge.”
― Newton Lee

“We are about to study the idea of a computational process. Computational processes are abstract beings that inhabit computers. As they evolve, processes manipulate other abstract things called data. The evolution of a process is directed by a pattern of rules called a program. People create programs to direct processes. In effect, we conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells.

A computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer's idea of a spirit. It cannot be seen or touched. It is not composed of matter at all. However, it is very real. It can perform intellectual work. It can answer questions. It can affect the world by disbursing money at a bank or by controlling a robot arm in a factory. The programs we use to conjure processes are like a sorcerer's spells. They are carefully composed from symbolic expressions in arcane and esoteric programming languages that prescribe the tasks we want our processes to perform.

A computational process, in a correctly working computer, executes programs precisely and accurately. Thus, like the sorcerer's apprentice, novice programmers must learn to understand and to anticipate the consequences of their conjuring. Even small errors (usually called bugs or glitches) in programs can have complex and unanticipated consequences.”
― Harold Abelson, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

“An activity originally intended to be performed by low-status, clerical – and more often than not, female – computer programming was gradually and deliberately transformed into a high-status, scientific, and masculine discipline.”
― Nathan L. Ensmenger