In this respect a program is like a poem: you cannot write a poem without writing it. Yet people talk about programming as if it were a production process and measure "programmer productivity" in terms of "number of lines of code produced". In so doing they book that number on the wrong side of the ledger: we should always refer to "the number of lines of code spent".

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

Computer science has as much to do with computers as astronomy has to do with telescopes.

Production speed is severely slowed down if one works with half-time people who have other obligations as well. This is at least a factor of four; probably it is worse.

In their capacity as a tool, computers will be but a ripple on the surface of our culture. In their capacity as intellectual challenge, they are without precedent in the cultural history of mankind.

If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.

The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity.