On How to Problem-Solving Approaches
"Make it work, make it good, make it fast" — Kent Beck
"First make the change easy, then make the easy change." — paraphrased from Kent Beck
"First, solve the problem. Then, write the code." — John Johnson
"Fix the cause, not the symptom." — Steve Maguire
On Simplicity
"Keep it simple, stupid (KISS)." — Kelly Johnson (Skunk Works)
"Simplicity is the soul of efficiency." — Austin Freeman
"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away." — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"You aren't gonna need it (YAGNI)."
"The function of good software is to make the complex appear to be simple." — Grady Booch
On Features
"A primary cause of complexity is that software vendors uncritically adopt almost any feature that users want." — Niklaus Wirth
"The hardest part of design … is keeping features out." — Donald Norman
On Code
If two pieces of code do the same thing, but one is longer (or less readable), then obviously we want the shorter one. More lines of code is a liability. Therefore, code is a liability.
Humorous
"Java is to JavaScript what car is to Carpet." — Chris Heilmann
"Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen." — Edward V. Berard
"The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it’s too late." — Seymour Cray
"Testing can only prove the presence of bugs, not their absence." — Edsger W. Dijkstra
"If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in." — Edsger W. Dijkstra
"What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months." — Fred Brooks
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." — Brian Kernighan
"There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses." — Bjarne Stroustrup