To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. -- author unknown (quoted in `Robust Systems', Gerald Jay Suseman)
It is better to be quiet and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. -- WikiHow
Have you ever noticed that when you sit down to write something, half the ideas that end up in it are ones you thought of while writing it? The same thing happens with software. Working to implement one idea gives you more ideas. -- Paul Graham, The other road ahead.
All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky. -- Joel Spolsky (The Law of Leaky Abstractions)
This challenge, viz. the confrontation with the programming task, is so unique that this novel experience can teach us a lot about ourselves. It should deepen our understanding of the processes of design and creation, it should give us better control over the task of organizing our thoughts. If it did not do so, to my taste we should no deserve the computer at all! It has allready taught us a few lessons, and the one I have chosen to stress in this talk is the following. We shall do a much better programming job, provided that we approach the task with a full appreciation of its tremenduous difficulty, provided that we stick to modest and elegant programming languages, provided that we respect the intrinsec limitations of the human mind and approach the task as Very Humble Programmers. -- E. W. Dijkstra, The humble programmer
But what is it good for? -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, commenting on the microchip, 1968
The mind is everything. What you think you become. –Buddha
The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. ~Vidal Sassoon
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. –Henry David Thoreau
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. –Booker T. Washington