“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“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“The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intentions of its user.”
— Tony Hoare Primary source“Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out.”
— Tony Hoare Secondary source“I realised that both verification and testing were using the same technology—assertions—on a common goal of improving software products in their speed of delivery, their quality, and their reliability.”
— Tony Hoare Primary source“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 Primary source“The difference between a good software person and a great software person is fifty to one, twenty-five to fifty to one, huge dynamic range.”
— Steve Jobs Primary source“Many computer programs of the present day are of inordinate size—many thousands of pages of closely printed text. Mathematics has no tradition of dealing with expressions on this scale.”
— Tony Hoare Primary sourceSoftware Design Simplicity Quality Computer Science Robustness