… what society overwhelmingly asks for is snake oil. Of course, the snake oil has the most impressive names — otherwise you would be selling nothing — like “Structured Analysis and Design”, “Software Engineering”, “Maturity Models”, “Management Information Systems”, “Integrated Project Support Environments” “Object Orientation” and “Business Process Re-engineering”.

I would therefore like to posit that computing's central challenge, how not to make a mess of it, has not yet been met.

The prisoner falls in love with his chains.

Brainpower is by far our scarcest resource.

The effective exploitation of his powers of abstraction must be regarded as one of the most vital activities of a competent programmer.

Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.

Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes, biology is about microscopes or chemistry is about beakers and test tubes. Science is not about tools. It is about how we use them, and what we find out when we do.