“The real value of tests is not that they detect bugs in the code, but that they detect inadequacies in the methods, concentration, and skills of those who design and produce the code.”
Tony Hoare (verified)
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.
More about “How Did Software Get So Reliable Without Proof?” →
“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 (verified)“The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity.”
— Tony Hoare (verified)“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 (verified)“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 (verified)“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt (unverified)“In those days we did not trust anyone who had not been in the war, but we did not completely trust anyone.”
— Ernest Hemingway (verified)“Most problems in real life are poorly understood, in that the real problem is often something different from what it is orginally thought to be.”
— Tony Hoare (verified)“Knowledge is of no real value if all you can tell me is what happened yesterday. It is necessary to tell what will happen tomorrow.”
— Richard Feynman (verified)