Larry Wall Quotes

Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.

Gates is the ultimate programming machine. He believes everything can be defined, examined, reduced to essentials, and rearranged into a logical sequence that will achieve a particular goal.

If you've never programmed a computer, you should. There's nothing like it in the whole world. When you program a computer, it does exactly what you tell it to do. It's like designing a machine — any machine, like a car, like a faucet, like a gas-hinge for a door — using math and instructions. It's awesome in the truest sense: it can fill you with awe.

There are people who actually like programming. I dont understand why they like programming.

A programming language is for thinking about programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of. It should be a pencil, not a pen.

It always helps to be a good programmer. It is important to like computers and to be able to think of things people would want to do with their computers.

Writing software is a very intense, very personal thing. You have to have time to work your way through it, to understand it. Then debug it.

My duty as a teacher is to train, educate future programmers.

Programming is usually taught by examples.

If you have an analytical bent like I do, going back to my days as a programmer, you like to ask questions.

If you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?

Programming is how we talk to the machines that are increasingly woven into our lives. If you aren't a programmer, you're like one of the unlettered people of the Middle Ages who were told what to think by the literate priesthood. We had a Renaissance when more people could read and write; we'll have another one when everyone programs.

Listening, Testing, Coding, Designing. That's all there is to software. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.

The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially attractive, not only because it can economically and scientifically rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic experience much like composing poetry or music.

I think everyone should get a little exposure to computer science because it really forces you to think in a slightly different way, and it's a skill that you can apply in life in general, whether you end up in computer science or not.

Building Oracle is like doing math puzzles as a kid.

When you program, you want to think you're writing the best possible program for the... for the task you're trying to solve.

Learning to program has no more to do with designing interactive software than learning to touch type has to do with writing poetry

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. It is the art of designing efficient and elegant methods of getting a computer to solve problems, theoretical or practical, small or large, simple or complex. It is the art of translating this design into an effective and accurate computer program.

Programming today is the opposite of diamond mining. In diamond mining you dig up a lot of dirt to find a small bit of value. With programming you start with the value, the real intention, and bury it in a bunch of dirt.

Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer, because it teaches you how to think.

Design and programming are human activities; forget that and all is lost.

We ought to be keeping in mind that the technology is not just hardware and machinery, it is also software. So you can think of languages of the technology and writing of the technology and the social justice of the technology in what social justice does is reduce impacts on the Earth because the most impact is from the poorest and richest people.

Computer science needs to be part of the core curriculum - like algebra, biology, physics, or chemistry. We need all schools to teach it, not just 10%.

Developers, developers, developers, developers.