Computer Language Quotes

Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We teachers make the road, others will make the journey. ~ Victor Hugo

About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. ~ Edsger Dijkstra

The three most important aspects of debugging and real estate are the same: Location, Location, and Location. ~ Richard E. Pattis

The unavoidable price of reliability is simplicity. ~ Tony Hoare

Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible. ~ Alan Kay

If you want to truly understand something, try to change it. ~ Kurt Lewin

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming. ~ Alan Perlis

The sole justification of teaching, of the school itself, is that the student comes out of it able to do something he could not do before. I say do and not know, because knowledge that doesn't lead to doing something new or doing something better is not knowledge at all. ~ Jacques Barzun

Computer languages differ not so much in what they make possible, but in what they make easy. ~ Larry Wall

A teacher's job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded. ~ Darwin D. Martin

Computer languages of the future will be more concerned with goals and less with procedures specified by the programmer. ~ Marvin Minsky

If you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it? ~ Brian Kernighan

Quite frankly, even if the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out, that in itself would be a huge reason to use C. ~ Linus Torvalds

A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it. ~ Frank Herbert

Whereas smaller computer languages have features designed into them, C++ is unusual in having a whole swathe of functionality discovered, like a tract of 19th century Africa. ~ Verity Stob

A $100,000,000 venture capital fund was set up solely for products using a specific computer language. ~ Cay S. Horstmann

The structure of a software system provides the ecology in which code is born, matures, and dies. A well-designed habitat allows for the successful evolution of all the components needed in a software system. ~ Richard E. Pattis

The real technology -behind all our other technologies- is language. It actually creates the world our consciousness lives in. ~ Andrei Codrescu

A great lathe operator commands several times the wage of an average lathe operator, but a great writer of software code is worth 10,000 times the price of an average software writer. ~ Bill Gates

Codes and patterns are very different from each other," Langdon said. "And a lot of people confuse the two. In my field, it's crucial to understand their fundamental difference."
"That being?"
Langdon stopped walking and turned to her. "A pattern is any distinctly organized sequence. Patterns occur everywhere in nature - the spiraling seeds of a sunflower, the hexagonal cells of a honeycomb, the circular ripples on a pond when a fish jumps, et cetera."
"Okay. And codes?"
"Codes are special," Langdon said, his tone rising. "Codes, by definition, must carry information. They must do more than simply form a pattern - codes must transmit data and convey meaning. Examples of codes include written language, musical notation, mathematical equations, computer language, and even simple symbols like the crucifix. All of these examples can transmit meaning or information in a way that spiraling sunflowers cannot. ~ Dan Brown

The value of a prototype is in the education it gives you, not in the code itself. ~ Amari Cooper

The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it. ~ Jacques Barzun

C gives the programmer what the programmer wants; few restrictions, few complaints... C++ maintains the original spirit of C, that the programmer not the language is in charge. ~ Herbert Schildt

Scientists build to learn; Engineers learn to build. ~ Fred Brooks

Unlike television or the computer, language appears to be not an extension of our powers but simply a natural expression of who and what we are. This is the great secret of language: Because it comes from inside us, we believe it to be a direct, unedited, unbiased, apolitical expression of how the world really is. A machine, on the other hand, is outside of us, clearly created by us, modifiable by us, even discardable by us; it is easier to see how a machine re-creates the world in its own image. But in many respects, a sentence functions very much like a machine, and this is nowhere more obvious than in the sentences we call questions. ~ Neil Postman

Never hesitate to ask a lesser person. ~ Confucius

Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer. ~ Edsger W. Dijkstra

Although our grammar schools are teaching a whole generation computer language to adjust to the technological needs of a Stage II [post survival-focused] society, we have neglected to teach this generation relationship language and conflict resolution skills to address the social and psychological needs of a Stage II society. And when it is taught, in countries like Germany, although called social competence it focuses on workplace teamwork
still on survival, breadwinner oriented work goals. ~ Warren Farrell

Using the analogy of the human mind as a computer, gossip can be compared to a computer virus. A computer virus is a piece of computer language written in the same language all the other codes are written in, but with a harmful intent. This code is inserted into the program of your computer when you least expect it and most of the time without your awareness. After this code has been introduced, your computer doesn't work quite right, or it doesn't function at all because the codes get so mixed up with so many conflicting messages that it stops producing good results. ~ Miguel Ruiz

If you cannot grok the overall structure of a program while taking a shower, you are not ready to code it. ~ Richard E. Pattis

Emacs is written in Lisp, which is the only computer language that is beautiful. ~ Neal Stephenson

If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution. ~ Robert Sewell

When someone says, "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done," give him a lollipop. ~ Alan Perlis

In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering. ~ William James

For all their weirdness, I LOVE the penis people. I don't understand them. I can't imagine I'll ever learn their language of grunting and scratching, but I'm going to try. If I have to devote my life to learning, I will do it. I can't explain the compulsion that is me thinking about Stephen now. Or just watching a boy walk by and wondering what is going on inside his head. To have him want to play with my hair and take me exciting places. To touch his amazingly fabulous butt and not be arrested for assault.
Don't they have a distinct smell? When do they start producing that spicy, manly, different-from-me scent? I don't mean the sweaty, take-a-shower odor, but the yummy soap and a hint of cologne. The kind of scent that makes me want to inhale in their general vicinity just because I can.
I get fluttery and gooey and cease to function at higher levels. Like I shut down except for feeling things; like the hot rays of Stephen's manliness and the solid rock of femur and muscle under his denim cargo pants. ~ Amber Kizer

I was searching for a vocabulary with which to make sense of death, to find a way to begin defining myself and inching forward again. The privilege of direct experience had led me away from literary and academic work, yet now I felt that to understand my own experiences, I would have to translate them back into language. Hemingway described his process in similar terms: acquiring rich experiences, then retreating to cogitate and write about them. I needed words to go forward. ~ Paul Kalanithi

The columnist gives these words to the longings of an 11-year-old he meets with Tourette's syndrome: Wisdom is encoded in our common language. We all have, to some extent, a complex, sometimes adversarial, relationship with our physical selves. And I more than most people know that it is correct to say,'I have a body.' There is my body, and then there is ME, trying to make it behave. ~ George F. Will

This entailed switching around by hand ENIAC's rat's nest of cables and resetting its switches. At first the programming seemed to be a routine, perhaps even menial task, which may have been why it was relegated to women, who back then were not encouraged to become engineers. But what the women of ENIAC soon showed, and the men later came to understand, was that the programming of a computer could be just as significant as the design of its hardware. ~ Walter Isaacson

Richard Hugo taught me that anyone with a desire to write, an ear for language and a bit of imagination could become a writer. He also, in a way, gave me permission to write about northern Montana. ~ James Welch

On the other hand, in a society whose communication component is becoming more prominent day by day, both as a reality and as an issue, it is clear that language assumes a new importance. ~ Jean Francois Lyotard

As the base rhetorician uses language to increase his own power, to produce converts to his own cause, and to create loyal followers of his own person so the noble rhetorician uses language to wean men away from their inclination to depend on authority, to encourage them to think and speak clearly, and to teach them to be their own masters. ~ Thomas Szasz

My worst holiday was in Athens when I was a young drama student at Rada in 1965. I ran out of money. I had my things stolen and I wasn't able to speak a word of the language. ~ Stephanie Beacham

We're just into toys, whether it's motorcycles or race cars or computers. I've got the Palm Pilot right here with me, I've got the world's smallest phone. Maybe it's just because I'm still a big little kid and I just love toys, you know? ~ Catherine Bell

Among the current discussions, the impact of new and sophisticated methods in the study of the past occupies an important place. The new 'scientific' or 'cliometric' history-born of the marriage contracted between historical problems and advanced statistical analysis, with economic theory as bridesmaid and the computer as best man-has made tremendous advances in the last generation. ~ Robert Fogel

I hope my visual language inspires others to tell their stories and challenges people's thinking. ~ Aurora Guerrero

Did he just rip out the engine?" I asked.
"Yes", Saiman said. "And now he is demolishing the Maserati with it."
Ten seconds later Curran hurled the twisted wreck of black and orange that used to be the Maserati into the wall.
The first melodic notes of an old song came from the computer. I glanced at Saiman.
He shrugged. "It begged for a soundtrack. ~ Ilona Andrews

The fall of humanity was the fall from the actual to the symbolic. Language abstracts us from the real world; keeping us from direct, intuitive perception. Words, like the ego, are merely guides. Don't mistake them for the real thing. Pull aside the filthy curtains of the social. Language makes an enigma of simple existence; it obscures the true nature of reality and of your self. ~ Tony Vigorito

My subconscious speaks in a foreign language. ~ Deb Caletti

Daemon spoke in his language. The lyrical quality of his words made no sense to me.
"What did you say?" I asked.
"There's really no translation for it," he said, "but the closest human words would be, you are beautiful to me. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Author's Prayer
If I speak for the dead, I must
leave this animal of my body,
I must write the same poem over and over
for the empty page is a white flag of their surrender.
If I speak of them, I must walk
on the edge of myself, I must live as a blind man
who runs through the rooms without
touching the furniture.
Yes, I live. I can cross the streets asking "What year
is it?"
I can dance in my sleep and laugh
in front of the mirror.
Even sleep is a prayer, Lord,
I will praise your madness, and
in a language not mine, speak
of music that wakes us, music
in which we move. For whatever I say
is a kind of petition and the darkest days
must I praise. ~ Ilya Kaminsky

Wars have been waged over millions of square miles, significantly larger than the British Empire at its peak. Historically, Islamic conquests stretched from southern France to the Philippines, from Austria to Nigeria, and from central Asia to New Guinea. The Muslim goal was to have a central government, first at Damascus, and then at Baghdad, later at Cairo, Istanbul, and other imperial centres. The local governors, judges, and other rulers were appointed by the central imperial authorities for far off colonies. Islamic law was introduced as the senior law, whether or not wanted by the local people. Arabic was introduced as the rulers' language, while the local languages frequently disappeared. Then, two classes of residents were established. The native residents paid a tax that their rulers did not have to pay. In each case, these laws allowed the local conquered people less freedom than was given to Muslims. ~ Anita B. Sulser PhD

Thirty years ago, we used to ask: Can a computer simulate all processes of logic? The answer was yes, but the question was surely wrong. We should have asked: Can logic simulate all sequences of cause and effect? And the answer would have been no. ~ Gregory Bateson

Music, to me, is not math or science. It is a language. ~ Russell Malone

In English we blame others for not understanding us when really it's our fault for not saying what we wanted to say. ~ Rory Dunlop

In songwriting, I needed language. And I always believed in singing about what I do. ~ Jason Molina

The old view was that delicacy of language was part of the nature, the sacred nature, of eros and that to speak about it in any other way would be to misunderstand it. What has disappeared is the risk and the hope of human connectedness embedded in eros. Ours is a language that reduces the longing for an other to the need for individual, private satisfaction and safety. ~ Allan Bloom

Much of the early engineering development of digital computers was done in universities. A few years ago, the view was commonly expressed that universities had played their part in computer design, and that the matter could now safely be left to industry. [ ... ] Apart from the obvious functions of keeping in the public domain material that might otherwise be hidden, universities can make a special contribution by reason of their freedom from commercial considerations, including freedom from the need to follow the fashion. ~ Maurice Wilkes

Or is it the opposite-that the US has moved so far and so fast toward cultural permissiveness that we've reached a kind of apsidal point? It might be instructive to try seeing things from the perspective of, say, a God-fearing hard-working rural-Midwestern military vet. It's not that hard. Imagine gazing through his eyes at the world of MTV and the content of video games, at the gross sexualization of children's fashions, at Janet Jackson flashing her aureole on what's supposed to be a holy day. Imagine you're him having to explain to your youngest what oral sex is and what it's got to do with a US president. Ads for penis enlargers and Hot Wet Sluts are popping up out of nowhere on your family's computer. Your kids' school is teaching them WWII and Vietnam in terms of Japanese internment and the horrors of My Lai. Homosexuals are demanding holy matrimony; your doctor's moving away because he can't afford the lawsuit insurance; illegal aliens want driver's licenses; Hollywood elites are bashing America and making millions from it; the president's ridiculed for reading his Bible; priests are diddling kids left and right. Shit, the country's been directly attacked, and people aren't supporting our commander in chief.

Assume for a moment that it's not silly to see things this man's way. What cogent, compelling, relevant message can the center and left offer him? Can we bear to admit that we've actually helped set him up to hear "We 're better than they are" not as twi ~ David Foster Wallace

When people write software, they are not writing it for themselves. In fact, they are not even writing primarily for the computer. Rather, good programmers know that code is written for the next human being who has to read it in order to maintain or reuse it. If that person cannot understand the code, it's all but useless in a realistic development scenario. ~ Mark Lutz

German is a much more precise language than English. Americans throw the word love around for everything: I love my wife! I love all my friends! I love rock music! I love the rain! I love comic books! I love peanut butter!

The word you use to describe your feelings for your wife should not be the same word you use to describe your feelings for peanut butter. In German, there are a dozen different words that describe varying degrees of liking something a lot. Germans almost never use the word love, unless they mean a deep romantic love. I have never told my parents I love them, because it would sound melodramatic, inappropriate, and almost incestuous. In German, you tell your mother that you hold her very dear, not that you are in love with her. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

In this sort of predicament, always ask yourself: How did we learn the meaning of this word ("good", for instance)? From what sort of examples? In what language-games? Then it will be easier for you to see that the word must have a family of meanings. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

After all, nothing helps to write lyrics more than to mess around with the language. ~ Joshua Homme

In a proper Islamic University, fard 'ain knowledge which represents the permanent intellectual and spiritual needs of the human soul
should form the core curriculum, and should be made obligatory to all students. Fard kifayah knowledge
reflecting societal needs and global trends
is not obligatory to all, but must be mastered by and adequate number of Muslims to ensure the proper development of the Community and to safeguard its proper place in world affairs. The fard 'ain knowledge shall include knowledge of the traditional Islamic sciences such as the Arabic language, metaphysics, the Qur'an and Hadith, ethics, the shari'ah sciences, and the history of Islam. Consonant with our position that these fard 'ain sciences are not static but dynamic, they should be continuously studied, analyzed, and applied in relation to the fard kifayah sciences; i.e. the fields of their specialization. ~ Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud

I have been so careless with the words I already have.

I don't remember how to say home
in my first language, or lonely, or light.

I remember only
delam barat tang shodeh, I miss you,

and shab bekheir, goodnight.

How is school going, Kaveh-joon?
Delam barat tang shodeh.

Are you still drinking?
Shab bekheir.

For so long every step I've taken
has been from one tongue to another. ~ Kaveh Akbar

All the dialogue on tape, and we'd play the tape in performance. Then I thought it'd be interesting if the actor's repeated what they heard on the tape, but at a slower speed, so we'd get a web of language. ~ Richard Foreman

When the rods were pushed back in and the clicking had died down, we suddenly experiences a let-down feeling, for all of us understood the language of the counter. Even though we had anticipated the success of the experiment, its accomplishment had a deep impact on us. For some time we had known that we were about to unlock a giant; still we could not escape an eerie feeling when we had actually done it. We felt as, I presume, everyone feels who has done something that he knowns will have very far-reaching consequences which he cannot foresee. ~ Eugene Wigner

Groups like the NAACP, The Anti-Defamation League, NOW and GLAAD, will respond to derisive language directed at their constituents. The price paid by those who cavalierly chose to verbally disrespect the dignity of African Americans, Jews, women and homosexuals is steep. ~ John C. McGinley

There is a language of love, which is to say, a truth that does not tell all and a lie that does not deceive. ~ Robert Breault

Three words, Ignis aurum probat. "Fire tests gold." The rest of the phase:"...and adversity tests the brave." How true. A strong password, strong indeed, exactly as required by the computer system. Thank you, Seneca." p. 308 ~ Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

The only time I've ever been mistaken for someone else is - and this arguable still - when a person came up to me on the boardwalk of Ocean City, New Jersey and said, "You look a lot like that guy from computer ads" and I said, "There is a reason because I am that guy," and the guy looked at me for a minute, laughed and said, "That's a funny joke, but you really do look like him." He thought I was not me. ~ John Hodgman

Language has time as its element; all other media have space as their element. ~ Soren Kierkegaard