cwash into software

A collection of my favorite programming-related quotes.

Testing

Testing is the engineering rigor of software development. –Neal Ford

Code without tests is bad code. It doesn’t matter how well written it is; it doesn’t matter how pretty or object-oriented or well-encapsulated it is. With tests, we can change the behavior of our code quickly and verifiably. Without them, we really don’t know if our code is getting better or worse. –Michael Feathers

Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence! –E. W. Dijkstra

Premature Optimization

More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason – including blind stupidity. –William A. Wulf

We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time; premature optimization is the root of all evil. –Donald E. Knuth

We follow two rules in the matter of optimization: Rule 1: Don’t do it. Rule 2: (for experts only) Don’t do it yet – that is, until you have a perfectly clear and unoptimized solution. –M. A. Jackson

Strive to write good programs rather than fast ones. –Joshua Bloch

Non-Sequitir

There are only two hard problems in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things. –Phil Karlton