This quote, also known as Hoare’s Law, offers a wry yet incisive commentary on the nature of software development. It suggests that beneath the surface of any sprawling codebase lies a simpler, more elegant design—a fundamental idea often obscured by layers of unnecessary complexity. The insight serves as a reminder that while large programs tend to accumulate superfluous features over time, the true art of programming is in distilling problems to their simplest form.
Efficient Production of Large Programs (Secondary source)
Transcripts of round-tables at a conference; it’s mostly known as the source of Tony Hoare’s Law, “inside every large program there is a small program trying to get out.”
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“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“The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity.”
— 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“In all branches of commerce and industry, history shows dramatic reduction in the error rates when their cost is brought back from the customer to the perpetrator.”
— Tony Hoare Primary source“For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done for ever.”
— Henry David Thoreau Primary source“Do not do that which you would not have known.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“He that can have patience can have what he will.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“Go out into the sunlight and be happy with what you see.”
— Winston Churchill Primary sourceSoftware Design Computer Programming Simplicity