James Gosling

Computer Science Canadian 1955 361 quotes

Often credited as the father of the Java programming language.

Most quoted

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as you can, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it."

— from Commonly attributed/quoted by him

"The problem with C++ is that it's too easy to shoot yourself in the foot. Java is much harder to shoot yourself in the foot with, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off."

— from Interview/Presentation, 1996

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

— from often attributed to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, but Gosling has used it in context of software development

All quotes by James Gosling (361)

The object-oriented paradigm was a natural fit for what we were trying to do.

Discussions on Java's design choices

We wanted to create a language that was easy to learn and easy to use.

Various interviews about Java's design

The Java ecosystem is vast and diverse, with a huge community of developers.

Discussions on Java's success

Java has evolved significantly over the years, but its core principles remain the same.

Discussions on Java's longevity

The HotSpot VM was a major breakthrough in Java performance.

Discussions on Java's performance improvements

Concurrency is a challenging problem, and Java provides tools to help developers deal with it.

Discussions on Java's concurrency features

The open-source nature of Java has been a key factor in its success.

Discussions on Java's community and adoption

Java is used in everything from mobile phones to supercomputers.

Discussions on Java's widespread use

The future of computing is distributed, and Java is well-suited for that.

Discussions on Java's relevance in modern computing

We built Java to be a language that could last for a long time.

Various interviews about Java's design

The Java API is a rich set of libraries that makes it easy to build complex applications.

Discussions on Java's ecosystem

Java's strong typing helps to catch errors early in the development process.

Discussions on Java's safety features

The Java community is incredibly vibrant and supportive.

Discussions on Java's community

Java is a language that's constantly evolving to meet the needs of developers.

Discussions on Java's evolution

The goal was to make programming fun again.

Referring to the early motivations behind Java

We wanted to avoid the pitfalls of other languages.

Discussions on Java's design choices

The power of Java lies in its simplicity and its ubiquity.

Various discussions on Java's strengths

Java's success is a testament to the hard work of many people.

Acknowledging the community's contribution

The ability to run on different platforms without recompilation was a game-changer.

Referring to Java's portability

Java has enabled a whole new generation of applications.

Discussions on Java's impact