WIST Quotations

Knuth, Donald E. -- Essay (1996), “Foreword” to Marko Petkovsek, Herbert Wilf and Doron Zeilberger, A = B (1996)

Dave — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 21:11:22 +0000

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.

Donald E. Knuth (b. 1938) American computer scientist, mathematician, academic
Essay (1996), “Foreword” to Marko Petkovsek, Herbert Wilf and Doron Zeilberger, A = B (1996)
(Source)

Raskin, Jef -- The Humane Interface, 1-5 (2000)

Dave — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 19:00:48 +0000

Once the product’s task is known, design the interface first; then implement to the interface design.

Jef Raskin (1943-2005) American computer scientist, writer
The Humane Interface, 1-5 (2000)
(Source)

House, Cory -- Twitter (12 Nov 2013)

Dave — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 20:11:00 +0000

Code is like humor. When you have to explain it, it’s bad.

Cory House (contemp.) American software architect, speaker, author
Twitter (12 Nov 2013)
(Source)

Raymond, Eric S. -- The Cathedral & the Bazaar (1999)

Dave — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 22:20:34 +0000

Ugly programs are like ugly suspension bridges: they’re much more liable to collapse than pretty ones, because the way humans (especially engineer-humans) perceive beauty is intimately related to our ability to process and understand complexity.

Eric S. Raymond (b. 1957) American software developer, writer [a.k.a. ESR]
The Cathedral & the Bazaar (1999)

Raymond, Eric S. -- The Cathedral and the Bazaar, ch. 2, Rule 9 (1999)

Dave — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 17:51:23 +0000

Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other way around.

Eric S. Raymond (b. 1957) American software developer, writer [a.k.a. ESR]
The Cathedral and the Bazaar, ch. 2, Rule 9 (1999)
(Source)

Adams, Douglas -- Dirk Gently No. 1, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, ch. 4 [Richard] (1987)

Dave — Mon, 08 Jun 2015 13:07:13 +0000

What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that’s really the essence of programming. By the time you’ve sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you’ve learned something about it yourself.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Dirk Gently No. 1, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, ch. 4 [Richard] (1987)
(Source)

Adams, Douglas -- Last Chance to See, ch. 2 (1991)

Dave — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:27:08 +0000

I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Last Chance to See, ch. 2 (1991)

Knuth, Donald E. -- Essay (1974-12), “Structured Programming with go to Statements,” ACM Computing Surveys, Vol. 6

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

There is no doubt that the “grail” of efficiency leads to abuse. Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about, or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance are considered. We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.

Donald E. Knuth (b. 1938) American computer scientist, mathematician, academic
Essay (1974-12), “Structured Programming with go to Statements,” ACM Computing Surveys, Vol. 6
(Source)