Donald Knuth

Premature optimization is the root of all evil.

The best programs are written so that computing machines can perform them quickly and so that human beings can understand them clearly. A programmer is ideally an essayist who works with traditional aesthetic and literary forms as well as mathematical concepts.

The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.

I can’t go to a restaurant and order food because I keep looking at the fonts on the menu.

Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs: Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do.

The real problem is that programmers have spent far too much time worrying about efficiency in the wrong places and at the wrong times; premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming.

People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones.

Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things.

The best way to predict the future is to implement it.

I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone.

The most important thing in a programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.

A programmer who subconsciously views himself as an artist will enjoy what he does and will do it better.

The difference between art and science is that science is what people understand well enough to explain to a computer. All else is art.

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.

The ultimate test of a program is not how correct it is, but how well it communicates its purpose to human beings.

I had a tremendous amount of fun writing those programs, and I think that’s the main reason I succeeded.

The most important thing in the kitchen is the waste paper basket.

The only way to learn to write is to write.

I don’t know what the language of the year 2000 will look like, but I know it will be called Fortran.

The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.