Thoughts on computer software

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