Here is a language so far ahead of its time, that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors.

I was eventually persuaded of the need to design programming notations so as to maximize the number of errors which cannot be made, or if made, can be reliably detected at compile time.

Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out.

At first I hoped that such a technically unsound project would collapse but I soon realized it was doomed to success. Almost anything in software can be implemented, sold, and even used given enough determination. There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars. But there is one quality that cannot be purchased in this way - and that is reliability. The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay.

The job of formal methods is to elucidate the assumptions upon which formal correctness depends.

There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.

Here is a language so far ahead of its time, that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors.