Related:

• Quote #5 Here is a classic example of a language feature which combines danger to the programmer with difficulty for the implementor.
  -- C.A.R. Hoare, "Hints on programming language design" [ STAN-CS-73-403 (AIM-224), p....
• Quote #674 I was eventually persuaded of the need to design programming notations so as to maximize the number of errors which cannot be made
  or if made, can be reliably detected at compile time. -- C.A.R. Hoare...
• Quote #22 ``Pointers are like jumps, leading wildly from one part of the data structure to another.
  Their introduction into high-level languages has been a step backwards from which we may never recover'' -- C....
• Pascal n. An Algol-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600 around 1967-68 as an instructional tool for elementary programming.
  This language, designed primarily to keep students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus extremely restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point of view, was later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact, became the ancestor of a large family of languages including Modula-2 and Ada (see also bondage-and-discipline l summed up by a devastating (and, in its deadpan way, screamingly funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of K&...
• Quote #596 Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.
  -- G.K. Chesterto...
• bottom-up implementation n. Hackish opposite of the techspeak term `top-down design'.
  It has been received wisdom in most programming cultures that it is best to design from higher levels of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences of action in increasing detail until you get to actual code....
• bottom-up implementation: n. Hackish opposite of the techspeak term `top-down design'.
  It is now received wisdom in most programming cultures that it is best to design from higher levels of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences of action in increasing detail until you get to actual code....
• Algol 60 was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors.
  -- C. A. R. Hoare...
• What I do, first thing [in the morning], is I hop into the shower stall.
  Then I hop right back out, because when I hopped in I landed barefoot right on top of See Threepio, a little plastic robot character from "Star Wars" whom my son, Robert, likes to pull the legs off of while he showers....