“I call it my billion-dollar mistake. It was the invention of the null reference in 1965.”
Tony Hoare
Null References: The Billion Dollar Mistake (Primary source)
A conference presentation where Tony Hoare reflects on his 1965 introduction of the null reference in ALGOL W, candidly calling it his “billion-dollar mistake” due to the widespread software errors and system crashes it has caused over the decades.
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“I call it my billion-dollar mistake. It was the invention of the null reference in 1965. At that time, I was designing the first comprehensive type system for references in an object oriented language (ALGOL W). My goal was to ensure that all use of references should be absolutely safe, with checking performed automatically by the compiler. But I couldn’t resist the temptation to put in a null reference, simply because it was so easy to implement. This has led to innumerable errors, vulnerabilities, and system crashes, which have probably caused a billion dollars of pain and damage in the last forty years.”
Tony Hoare
“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“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“Computer programming is like doing crossword puzzles, and being paid for it”
— Tony Hoare Primary source“Functionally oriented design of this kind has always been strongly influenced by technological development, and will continue to be so in the future. The Braun pocket radios that we designed at the end of the 1950s would not have been possible without the new transistor technology at the time. Transistors were not only far smaller than valves, they also required much less power. That meant that for the first time it was possible to make a radio receiver that you could literally put in your pocket.”
— Dieter Rams Primary source“Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Disputed“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.”
— Tony Hoare Primary source“I wrote my first program for a computer when I was thirteen years old.”
— Bill Gates Primary sourceNull Software Design Reliability