“Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.”

– Donald Knuth

“Before software can be reusable it first has to be usable.”

– Ralph Johnson

“Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.”

– Fred Brooks

“Programming can be fun, so can cryptography; however they should not be combined.”

– Kreitzberg and Shneiderman

“The difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.”

– Richard Moore

“On two occasions I have been asked, ‘If you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.”

– Charles Babbage

“It’s better to wait for a productive programmer to become available than it is to wait for the first available programmer to become productive.”

– Steve McConnell