 But quality of work can be expected only through personal satisfaction, dedication and enjoyment. In our profession, precision and perfection are not a dispensible luxury, but a simple necessity. |
| Our ultimate goal is extensible programming (EP). By this, we mean the construction of hierarchies of modules, each module adding new functionality to the system. |
| My being a teacher had a decisive influence on making language and systems as simple as possible so that in my teaching, I could concentrate on the essential issues of programming rather than on details of language and notation. |
| Nevertheless, I consider OOP as an aspect of programming in the large; that is, as an aspect that logically follows programming in the small and requires sound knowledge of procedural programming. |
| Software development is technical activity conducted by human beings. |
| A good designer must rely on experience, on precise, logic thinking; and on pedantic exactness. No magic will do. |
| Usually its users discover sooner or later that their program does not deliver all the desired results, or worse, that the results requested were not the ones really needed. |
| The possible solutions to a given problem emerge as the leaves of a tree, each node representing a point of deliberation and decision. |
| In the practical world of computing, it is rather uncommon that a program, once it performs correctly and satisfactorily, remains unchanged forever. |
| Programming is usually taught by examples. |
| Clearly, programming courses should teach methods of design and construction, and the selected examples should be such that a gradual development can be nicely demonstrated. |
| Yet, I am convinced that there is a need for high quality software, and the time will come when it will be recognized that it is worth investing effort in its development and in using a careful, structured approach based on safe, structured languages. |
| It is evidently necessary to generate and test candidates for solutions in some systematic manner. |
| But active programming consists of the design of new programs, rather than contemplation of old programs. |
| I have never designed a language for its own sake. |
| The idea that one might derive satisfaction from his or her successful work, because that work is ingenious, beautiful, or just pleasing, has become ridiculed. |
| My duty as a teacher is to train, educate future programmers. |
| Program construction consists of a sequence of refinement steps. |
| Indeed, the woes of Software Engineering are not due to lack of tools, or proper management, but largely due to lack of sufficient technical competence. |
| Many people tend to look at programming styles and languages like religions: if you belong to one, you cannot belong to others. But this analogy is another fallacy. |
