“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
How Did Software Get So Reliable Without Proof? (Primary source)
Despite early fears that software systems would be too error-prone to scale, modern software has become remarkably reliable. This reliability emerged not from widespread formal proofs, but from sound engineering practices like rigorous project management, comprehensive testing, and defensive design.
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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“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“He that builds before he counts the cost, acts foolishly; and he that counts before he builds, finds he did not count wisely.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“Someone once said that history is written by the victors. He probably was not the greatest of all victors, if only because his name has been utterly forgotten.”
— Winston Churchill Disputed“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
— Henry David Thoreau Primary source“How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened!”
— Thomas Jefferson Primary source