Bjarne Stroustrup Quotes

A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.

Thinking about language, while thinking _in_ language, leads to puzzles and paradoxes.

Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.

A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.

We think in language. We think in words. Language is the landscape of thought.

It is probably impossible to think without words, but if we permit ourselves to think with the wrong words, we shall soon be entertaining erroneous thoughts; for words, which are given us for the expression of thought, have a habit of going beyond their proper bounds and determining the content of thought.

Computer languages differ not so much in what they make possible, but in what they make easy.

Language is not a handmaiden to perception; it is perception; it gives shape to what would otherwise be inert and dead.

Syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints --the rules that run us. Language is using us to talk --we think we're using the language, but language is doing the thinking, we're its slavish agents.

We think in language. The quality of our thoughts and ideas can only be as good as the quality of our language.

My impression was and is that many programming languages and tools represent solutions looking for problems, and I was determined that my work should not fall into that category. Thus, I follow the literature on programming languages and the debates about programming languages primarily looking for ideas for solutions to problems my colleagues and I have encountered in real applications. Other programming languages constitute a mountain of ideas and inspiration-but it has to be mined carefully to avoid featurism and inconsistencies.

Was it really so far-fetched to think that words had a way of shaping a person's whole life?

Language does our thinking for us.

If everyone is trying to prevent error, it screws things up.

Now, I'm not the only language designer with irrationalities. You can think of some languages to go with some of these things.

I suppose you could switch grammars once you've seen 'use strict subs'.

Lisp was far more powerful and flexible than any other language of its day; in fact, it is still a better design than most languages of today, twenty-five years later. Lisp freed ITS's hackers to think in unusual and creative ways. It was a major factor in their successes, and remains one of hackerdom's favorite languages.

Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how they should solve some problem, they said, "OK, we'll do them both". So the language is too baroque for my taste.

At many levels, Perl is a 'diagonal' language.

Language is the picture and counterpart of thought.

Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.

The designer shouldn't think of a simple dichotomy between errors and correct behavior; rather, the entire interaction should be treated as a cooperative endeavor between person and machine, one in which misconceptions can arise on either side.

Language always preserves a play or figure/ground relation between experience, and perception and its replay in expression.

The constructions of language, which is to say the constructions of thought, are formed within experience, not the other way around.

Necessity resides in the way we talk about things, not in the things we talk about.