James Gosling Quotes

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

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

I enjoy evangelizing Java. In my heart of hearts, I'm an engineer, and what makes me happy is building something that works and having someone use it. That's cool.

The critical thing in developing software is not the program, it's the design. It is translating understanding of user needs into something that can be realized as a computer program.

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

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.

Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering.

At Microsoft, the magic of software is used to take on very interesting challenges.

I like writing code. I like building product. I like making things that people like.

If you know how to make software, then you can create big things.

'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 felt there was a need for us to build a new programming language. I also had come to see that Microsoft functions best when it controls its own destiny.

It's strategic for us - lots of people will develop applications in .NET.

When I worked at Microsoft, I got to go and visit a bunch of different companies. Probably a hundred different companies a year. You'd see all the different ways they'd work. The guys who did Ventura Publisher one day, and then United Airlines the next. You'd see the 12 guys in Texas doing Doom, and then you'd go see Aetna Life Insurance.

Computers have become more friendly, understandable, and lots of years and thought have been put into developing software to convince people that they want and need a computer.

Who decides what's in Windows? The customers who buy it.

The only thing I understand deeply, because in my teens I was thinking about it, and every year of my life, is software. So I'll never be hands-on on anything except software.

One of the first major programming projects that I worked on when I was growing up in Ireland, back just coding by myself, was a programming language. Then I spent a bunch of time working on a new web framer. Just back-end things to make it easier to go in and build things on top of, do other development.

If every sector of business and society will be driven by software - how does that get enabled? By highly-paid computer scientists funded by risk capital in Silicon Valley? Or by lots of engineers who can build it themselves?

It's something special being able to build a program up.

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

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

I am rarely happier than when spending an entire day programming my computer.