Software Quotes

Whenever I hear a programming quote that accurately describes how I feel about software development, I try to capture it here.

Design.

"Two weeks of coding can save you an hour of planning." – Unknown

Be wary of too much abstraction.

"We can solve any problem by introducing an extra level of abstraction." "…except for the problem of too many levels of abstraction." – Fundamental theorem of software engineering

Computers are fast, and we are bad at knowing bottlenecks ahead of time.

"Premature optimisation is the root of all evil" – Donald Knuth

Seemingly great ideas of today can be the nightmares of tomorrow.

"Ideas are cheap. It is building them into profitable companies that is hard. Ideas are like insects. Many are born but few live to maturity." – William Hertling

Build features that don't "interleave":

"The cost of adding a feature isn't just the time it takes to code it. The cost also includes the addition of an obstacle to future expansion. The trick is to pick the features that don't fight each other." – John Carmack