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Thoughts on computer software

Published: Sep 24, 2021 11:47:48 AM IST
Updated: Jun 3, 2022 07:17:05 PM IST

Thoughts on computer softwareImage: Sushil Kumar / Hindustan Times via Getty Images

We’ve gone from the image of India as land of fakirs lying on beds of nails, and snake charmers with the Indian rope trick, to the image of India as a land of mathematical geniuses, computer wizards, software gurus.
—Shashi Tharoor
Politician


Most good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program.
—Linus Torvalds
Finnish-American software programmer


There are two methods in software design. One is to make the program so simple, there are obviously no errors. The other is to make it so complicated, there are no obvious errors.
—Tony Hoare
British computer scientist


Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands
of slaves.
—Alan Kay
American computer scientist


Software is eating the world, but AI is going to eat software.
—Jensen Huang
Taiwanese-American businessman


If we want users to like our software, we should design it to behave like a likeable person.
—Alan Cooper
American software designer


Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the second law of thermodynamics; that is it always increases.
—Norman Ralph Augustine
American businessman


All software sucks.
—Alan Cox
American geophysicist


People usually compare the computer to the head of the human being. I would say that hardware is the bone of the head, the skull. The semiconductor is the brain within the head. The software is the wisdom. And data is the knowledge.
—Masayoshi Son
Japanese investor


Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering.
—Bill Gates
American businessman


Be careful about virtual relationships with artificially intelligent pieces of software.
—Larry Ellison
American businessman


You can mass-produce hardware; you cannot mass-produce software—you cannot mass-produce the human mind.
—Michio Kaku
American theoretical physicist


In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
—Alan Perlis
American computer scientist


(This story appears in the 24 September, 2021 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)

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