“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.”
Tony Hoare
The Emperor’s Old Clothes (Primary source)
Tony Hoare’s brilliant Turing Award lecture where he reflects on software design and the importance of simplicity and elegance in programming.
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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. Perhaps this would make the text of programs longer. Never mind! Wouldn’t you be delighted if your Fairy Godmother offered to wave her wand over your program to remove all its errors and only made the condition that you should write out and key in your whole program three times! The way to shorten programs is to use procedures, not to omit vital declarative information.
Tony Hoare
“What is the central core of the subject [computer science]? What is it that distinguishes it from the separate subjects with which it is related? What is the linking thread which gathers these disparate branches into a single discipline? My answer to these questions is simple—it is the art of programming a computer.”
— Tony Hoare Primary source“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.”
— Tony Hoare Primary source“The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity.”
— Tony Hoare Primary source“A crude measure of the simplicity of an engineering tool is the length of the manual required to give a full and complete account of how to use it and avoid misusing it.”
— Tony Hoare Primary source“That is just it, work is my element; I was born and made for it. I have found the limits of my legs; I have found the limits of my eyes; but I have never been able to find the limits of my labour.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Secondary source“Just as animals flourish in niches, people who specialize in the business world—and get very good because they specialize—frequently find good economics that they wouldn’t get any other way.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“If you know that this life is all that you have, wouldn’t you make the most of it?”
— Ayn Rand Disputed“If you look out far enough the computer will eventually learn to reason in somewhat the same way that humans do, so called "artificial intelligence". If you take that far enough you can imagine an evolution, essentially, moving over to silicon-based life and carbon-based life, playing a much more limited role than it does today.”
— Bill Gates Primary sourceSimplicity Software Design Reliability