James Gosling Quotes

There are two methods in software design. One is to make the program so simple, there are obviously no errors. The other is to make it so complicated, there are no obvious errors.

We decided that the French could never write user-friendly software because they're so rude.

Software Engineering might be science; but that's not what I do. I'm a hacker, not an engineer.

If 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself: 'Dijkstra would not have liked this', well that would be enough immortality for me.

If we want users to like our software, we should design it to behave like a likeable person.

'PhotoCard' has 20 times as much code as the sum of 'QuickDraw,' 'MacPaint,' and 'HyperCard.' It is more elaborate and complicated, with all the client and server stuff. It took a lot more of me to do this than other projects, requiring an almost Mother Teresa dedication to do it.

I have never written a line of commercial code in my life. Nor should I.

The most sought-after candidates in the world today by companies like mine are people who make computer software - there's a shortage of talent.

I know one business, and that's how to make software.

I designed and developed an unbelievable number of applications early in my life.

Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.

We're the toolmakers. Our developers are the real creative geniuses.

The thing that the Microsoft folks did a really good job of is the easy-to-use tools for making application-building simple.

Software eventually and necessarily gained the same respect as any other discipline.

Ironically, the thing that will likely make the least improvement in the ease of use of software-based products is new technology. There is little difference technically between a complicated, confusing program and a simple, fun, and powerful product.

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

The flip side of the coin was that even good programmers and language designers tended to do terrible extensions when they were in the heat of programming, because design is something that is best done slowly and carefully.

I used to be enamored of object-oriented programming. I'm now finding myself leaning toward believing that it is a plot designed to destroy joy.

"Legacy code" often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling.

Don't document bad code - rewrite it.

I made up the term "object-oriented," and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.

Programming is not a science. Programming is a craft.

Good programmers know what's beautiful and bad ones don't.

The hardest part of the software task is arriving at a complete and consistent specification, and much of the essence of building a program is in fact the debugging of the specification.