Steven Levy Quotes

In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word 'frustration'.

Low-level programming is good for the programmer's soul.

And, I think that is actually appropriate because I'm really not the world's best programmer, I think it's a good thing that I'm not touching the code.

It was used for decades to describe talented computer enthusiasts, people whose skill at using computers to solve technical problems and puzzles was - and is - respected and admired by others possessing similar technical skills.

I was a programmer.

Learn when and how to use different data structures and their algorithms in your own code. This is harder as a student, as the problem assignments you'll work through just won't impart this knowledge. That's fine.

People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.

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.

I've been programming computers since elementary school, where they taught us, and I stuck with computer science through high school and college.

I'm a great coder. But I am not pushing that so much anymore because there are thousands of great coders.

I took Pascal, and I was terrible. And then, when I went to NYU, I minored in computer science. I just couldn't code. I just didn't have the patience for it.

My first introduction to computers and computer programming came during my freshman year of college. I majored in electrical engineering with a minor in computer science, so I learned during my required courses at Vanderbilt University.

I got my first computer at the age of 6. To me, it was magic. By the time I was 12, I wanted to know the secrets behind the wizardry, and that started my journey toward computer programming. This was the early 1990s, when computers weren't built for the mass market.

I don't like programming. It's tedious.

C is a razor-sharp tool, with which one can create an elegant and efficient program or a bloody mess.

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.

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.

Twitch has been very hard for me. It makes me feel so stupid. I don't understand it at all... It's very complicated.

You have to be very skilled in this industry. I grew in this industry; we created the very beginnings of this industry. We made the first PCs (personal computers) in the world.

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

Code is not like other how-computers-work books. It doesn't have big color illustrations of disk drives with arrows showing how the data sweeps into the computer. Code has no drawings of trains carrying a cargo of zeros and ones. Metaphors and similes are wonderful literary devices but they do nothing but obscure the beauty of technology.

I think everyone should learn how to code.

In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.

C++ is designed to allow you to express ideas, but if you don't have ideas or don't have any clue about how to express them, C++ doesn't offer much help.

I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand.