Adjusting to the requirement for perfection is, I think, the most difficult part of learning to program.

A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build.

The fundamental problem with program maintenance is that fixing a defect has a substantial (20-50 percent) chance of introducing another. So the whole process is two steps forward and one step back.

All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists.

Product procedure...must securely protect the crown jewels, but, equally important, it must eschew building high fences around the garbage cans.

You can learn more from failure than success. In failure you're forced to find out what part did not work. But in success you can believe everything you did was great, when in fact some parts may not have worked at all. Failure forces you to face reality.

Nine people can't make a baby in a month.