Bjarne Stroustrup
Creator of the C++ programming language.
Most quoted
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
— from Often attributed, widely circulated
"The problem with C is that it's too easy to shoot yourself in the foot. The problem with C++ is that it gives you a loaded gun, and then tells you to go ahead and shoot yourself in the foot, but with style."
— from Humorous anecdote (often attributed, not a private letter)
"C++ is a general-purpose programming language with a bias towards systems programming that supports efficient low-level computation, data abstraction, object-oriented programming, and generic programming."
— from The C++ Programming Language (2nd Edition), 1991
All quotes by Bjarne Stroustrup (360)
An organization that treats its programmers as morons will soon have programmers that are willing and able to act like morons only.
Design and programming are human activities; forget that and all is lost.
You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.)
The purpose of C++ is to make writing good programs easier and more pleasant for the serious programmer.
I invented the term 'object-oriented', and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.
The first law of computer science: Every problem is solved by another layer of indirection.
A program that has not been tested does not work.
The most fundamental problem in software development is complexity. There is only one basic way of dealing with complexity: divide and conquer.
C++ is my favorite garbage collected language because it generates so little garbage.
Often, the elegant solution is the simple one, but finding it can be very hard.
I would like to see the cleanup of the language and the standard library, but I'm not willing to break billions of lines of code or millions of programmers' habits to do that.
The evolution of languages is necessarily slow because of the huge installed base.
Type safety is not an end in itself. It is a way of getting correct, maintainable, and efficient code.
A program is a model of some aspect of reality. The model must be understandable, efficient, and maintainable.
The idea of catching all exceptions in main() is a myth. It's usually the wrong thing to do.
Make simple tasks simple!
The best is the enemy of the good.
C++ is a language for expressing ideas. If your ideas are confused, your program will be confused.
The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.
The definition of 'good enough' is the enemy of 'perfect'.
Contemporaries of Bjarne Stroustrup
Other Computer Sciences born within 50 years of Bjarne Stroustrup (1950).