Brian Kernighan Quotes

11 Sourced Quotes

As we said in the preface to the first edition, C "wears well as one's experience with it grows." With a decade more experience, we still feel that way.

Brian Kernighan
Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?

Brian Kernighan
Trying to outsmart a compiler defeats much of the purpose of using one.

Brian Kernighan
Do what you think is interesting, do something that you think is fun and worthwhile, because otherwise you won't do it well anyway.

Brian Kernighan
Advice to students: Leap in and try things. If you succeed, you can have enormous influence. If you fail, you have still learned something, and your next attempt is sure to be better for it. Advice to graduates: Do something you really enjoy doing. If it isn't fun to get up in the morning and do your job or your school program, you're in the wrong field.

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

Brian Kernighan
Mechanical rules are never a substitute for clarity of thought.

Brian Kernighan
It is a fundamental principle of testing that you must know in advance the answer each test case is supposed to produce. If you don't, you are not testing; you are experimenting.

Brian Kernighan
C is a razor-sharp tool, with which one can create an elegant and efficient program or a bloody mess.

Brian Kernighan
Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.

Brian Kernighan
Trivia rarely affect efficiency. Are all the machinations worth it, when their primary effect is to make the code less readable?

Brian Kernighan