Questions tagged [quotations]

OFF TOPIC QUESTIONS ARE NOT SUPPORTED! Read “Discuss this ${blog}” (http://meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/q/6417). Originally meant for questions about what influential or famous people have said about programming.

OFF TOPIC QUESTIONS ARE NOT SUPPORTED!

This tag was meant for questions about the meaning of quotations related to software development. These questions should have demonstrated why the quotation is notable and what specifically hasn't been sufficiently explained elsewhere. However, the site scope has changed and such questions are no longer acceptable – see Discuss this ${blog}.

  • Questions about sourcing a quotation (i.e. “Who said 'X'?”) are off-topic.

  • Questions asking us to explain quotation (i.e. “What did {{author}} mean by this?”) are off-topic. Instead, ask about the actual concept: “Does {{concept}} mean {{my understanding}}?

For questions about writing quotes (i.e. estimating), check out the tag.

6 questions
237
votes
17 answers

Torvalds' quote about good programmer

Accidentally I've stumbled upon the following quote by Linus Torvalds: "Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships." I've thought about it for the last few days and I'm still…
beyeran
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110
votes
166 answers

What's your favourite quote about programming?

What's your favourite quote about programming? One quote per answer, and please check for duplicates before posting!
Gelatin
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40
votes
10 answers

What did Linus Torvalds mean by his quotation about portability?

In a debate with Andrew Tanenbaum over microkernel vs. monolithic operating system architecture, Linus Torvalds said, Portability is for people who cannot write new programs. What did he mean by that?
ykombinator
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36
votes
0 answers

What does the Jamie Zawinski's quotation about regular expressions mean?

In a message to comp.emacs.xemacs, Jamie Zawinski once said: Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems. I've always had trouble understanding what he was getting at. What…
Paul Biggar
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28
votes
11 answers

What did Alan Perlis mean regarding the ways to write error-free programs?

There's a quotation by Alan J. Perlis that says: There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works. I recently heard this quote from my friend, and was unable to understand the deeper meaning behind it. What is Perlis…
ykombinator
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16
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4 answers

What did Bill Gosper mean by saying a data structure is just a stupid programming language?

There's a quotation by Ralph William Gosper, Jr that says: A data structure is just a stupid programming language. What did he mean by this? Alas, all I can find in Google about it is relentless copy/pastes of the quotation itself, without any…
missingfaktor
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