“Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.”— Hal Abelson
“What I want is a language in which I can write programs that I have a chance of getting right.”— James J. Horning
“For me, the most fun part of programming is the pleasing aesthetic of well-written code.”— Bill Budge
“SICP is not about a programming language. It is about the process of computation and how to think about it.”— Hal Abelson
“There's a certain joy in hacking - not breaking into computers - but in making a computer do something it was never intended to do.”— Eric Allman
“Show me your flowchart and conceal your tables, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your flowchart; it'll be obvious.”— Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“Conventional programming languages are growing ever more enormous, but not stronger. Inherent defects at the most basic level cause them to be both fat and weak.”— John Backus
“The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.”— Edsger W. Dijkstra
“A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.”— Steve McConnell
“Good code is its own best documentation. As you’re about to add a comment, ask yourself, 'How can I improve the code so that this comment isn’t needed?'”— Steve McConnell
“A programming language is a tool that has a profound influence on our thinking habits.”— Guido van Rossum
“C++ is a general purpose programming language with a bias towards systems programming that is a better C.”— Bjarne Stroustrup
“The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.”— Edsger W. Dijkstra