Best Debugging Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“The most frequent complaint is that it's hard. True. it's a hard game to win Also, many people ask me how to use the secret debugging commands, apparently under the impression that I'll tell them.”

People Hard Use Asks Games Winning Secret Impression Command Ask Me Complaints Debugging

Author:Graham Nelson

“Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about, or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance are considered. We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%.”

Thinking Should Evil Opportunity Strong Forget Worry Amount Waste Negative Program Roots Impact Critical Speed Enormous Efficiency Programmers Maintenance Premature Optimization Debugging

Author:Donald Knuth

“I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.”

My Own Mistake Findings Program I Realized Programming Programmers Computer Programming Programming Languages Computer Language Computer Programmers Funny Computer Programming Funny Debugging Coders

Author:Maurice Wilkes

“Science requires a society because even people who are trying to be good thinkers love their own thoughts and theories - much of the debugging has to be done by others.”

People Trying Done Theory Be Good Thinker Debugging

Author:Alan Kay

“System debugging, like astronomy, has always been done chiefly at night.”

Done Night Astronomy Debugging

Author:Fred Brooks

“System debugging has always been a graveyard-shift occupation, like astronomy.”

Astronomy Occupation Graveyard Debugging

Author:Fred Brooks

“The wages of sin is debugging.”

Sin Wages Debugging

Author:Ron Jeffries

“The process of debugging, going an correcting the program and then looking at the behavior, and then correcting it again, and finally iteratively getting it to a working program, is in fact, very close to learning about learning.”

Facts Process Behavior Program Correcting Debugging

Author:Nicholas Negroponte

“If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.”

“As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.”

“Rushing to optimize before the bottlenecks are known may be the only error to have ruined more designs than feature creep. From tortured code to incomprehensible data layouts, the results of obsessing about speed or memory or disk usage at the expense of transparency and simplicity are everywhere. They spawn innumerable bugs and cost millions of man-hours - often, just to get marginal gains in the use of some resource much less expensive than debugging time”

Source: The Art of UNIX Programming

“Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”

“Building technical systems involves a lot of hard work and specialized knowledge: languages and protocols, coding and debugging, testing and refactoring.”

Hard Language Technology Building Hard Work Testing Protocol Debugging

Author:Jesse James Garrett

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

“When debugging, novices insert corrective code; experts remove defective code.”

“Premature optimization is the root of all evil in programming.”

“We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.”

Should Evil Forget Learning Roots Programming Efficiency Programmers Computer Programming Computer Science Programming Languages Premature Computer Language Computer Programmers Computer Software Optimization Debugging

Author:Donald Knuth

“Premature optimization is the root of all evil.”

Source: TEX: The Program

“We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%”

Should Evil Opportunity Forget Roots Critical Efficiency Premature Optimization Debugging

Author:Donald Knuth

“The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements.”

Stills Tools Careful Statements Programming Print Programmers Debugging

Author:Brian Kernighan

“Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs.”

Class Users Bugs Debugging New Class

Author:Brian Kernighan

“If you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?”

Ifs Writing Clever Programming Computer Programming Programming Languages Computer Language Debugging

Book:The Elements of Programming Style

Source: The Elements of Programming Style

“There has never been an unexpectedly short debugging period in the history of computers.”

Periods Computer Programming Testing Bugs Software Engineering Debugging

Book:Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - 25th Anniversary Edition

Source: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - 25th Anniversary Edition

“Programming allows you to think about thinking, and while debugging you learn learning.”

Thinking Programming Debugging

Author:Nicholas Negroponte

“The hardest part of the software task is arriving at a complete and consistent specification, and much of the essence of building a program is in fact the debugging of the specification.”

Facts Learning Building Program Tasks Essence Hardest Programming Consistent Software Arriving Software Engineering Specifications Debugging

Author:Fred Brooks

“Another effective [debugging] technique is to explain your code to someone else. This will often cause you to explain the bug to yourself. Sometimes it takes no more than a few sentences, followed by an embarrassed "Never mind, I see what's wrong. Sorry to bother you." This works remarkably well; you can even use non-programmers as listeners. One university computer center kept a teddy bear near the help desk. Students with mysterious bugs were required to explain them to the bear before they could speak to a human counselor.”

“The three most important aspects of debugging and real estate are the same: Location, Location, and Location.”

Important Real Three Learning Aspect Programming Estates Location Computer Programming Programming Languages Computer Language Debugging

Author:Richard E. Pattis

“Early Apple machines - don't know how to answer what it was like since there were so few tools. Just had to keep debugging by isolating a problem, looking at memory in the limited debugging (weaker than the DOS DEBUG and no symbols) patch and retry and then re-program, download and try again. And again.”

Knows Trying Problem Memories Answers Know How Program Tools Machines Symbols Apples Again And Again Patches Try Again Downloads Debugging

Author:Bob Frankston

“Testing proves a programmer’s failure. Debugging is the programmer’s vindication.”

Prove Testing Programmers Vindication Debugging

Book:Software Testing Techniques

Source: Software Testing Techniques

“If you want more effective programmers, you will discover that they should not waste their time debugging, they should not introduce the bugs to start with.”

Ifs Want Should Waste Programming Introducing Bugs Programmers Debugging

Author:Edsger Dijkstra

“Treating your users as co-developers is your least-hassle route to rapid code improvement and effective debugging.”

Improvement Code Programming Users Routes Rapids Developers Hassle Debugging

Book:The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary

Source: The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary

“To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.”

Debugging Quotes

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Debugging Quotes