“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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“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“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 most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intentions of its user.”
— Tony Hoare Primary source“All things are easy to industry, all things difficult to sloth.”
— Benjamin Franklin 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“I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past at my back.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson 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