Top 56 Quotes & Sayings by Bjarne Stroustrup

My list of basic tools is a partial answer to the question about what has changed: Over the past few years, large numbers of programmers have come to depend on elaborate tools to interface code with systems facilities.

Personally, I look forward to better tools for analyzing C++ source code.

With the increasing importance of standards for system-level objects such as COM and CORBA, it is particularly important that the C++ bindings to those be clean, well documented, and simple to use.

Clearly, I reject the view that there is one way that is right for everyone and for every problem.

The standard library saves programmers from having to reinvent the wheel.

First, I'd like to see the basic tools such as compilers, debuggers, profilers, database interfaces, GUI builders, CAD tools, and so forth fully support the ISO standard.

After all, C++ isn't a perfect match for Java's design aims either.

Defining OO as based on the use of class hierarchies and virtual functions is also practical in that it provides some guidance as to where OO is likely to be successful.

However, when Java is promoted as the sole programming language, its flaws and limitations become serious.

Thus, the standard library will serve as both a tool and as a teacher.

I find languages that support just one programming paradigm constraining.

Certainly not every good program is object-oriented, and not every object-oriented program is good.

I would encourage nonproprietary standards for tools and libraries.

It is easy to study the rules of overloading and of templates without noticing that together they are one of the keys to elegant and efficient type-safe containers.

People who passionately want to believe that the world is basically simple react to this with a fury that goes beyond what I consider appropriate for discussing a programming language.

This evolution may compromise Java's claim of being simpler than C++, but my guess is that the effort will make Java a better language than it is today.

There's an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to use as his telephone. That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to use my telephone.

The first law of computer science: Every problem is solved by yet another indirection.

Nobody should call themselves a professional if they only knew one language.

There are more useful systems developed in languages deemed awful than in languages praised for being beautiful - many more.

C++ is designed to allow you to express ideas, but if you don't have ideas or don't have any clue about how to express them, C++ doesn't offer much help.

Tom [Cargil]s suggestion with a further idea: Propsers of new [C++] features should be required to donate a kidney. That would - Jim [Waldo] pointed out - make people think hard before proposing, and even people without any sense would propose at most two extensions.

Some software is actually pretty good, by any standard. Think of the Mars Rovers, Google, and the Human Genome Project. Now, that's quality software!

Too many managers and executives try to reduce programming to a low-level assembly-line activity. That's inefficient, wasteful, costly in the long run, and inhumane to programmers.

Java isn't platform independent; it is a platform

There is no one "root of all evil" in software development. Design is hard in many ways. People tend to underestimate the intellectual and practical difficulties involved in building a significant system involving software. It is not and will not be reduced to a simple mechanical "assembly line" process. Creativity, engineering principles, and evolutionary change are needed to create a satisfactory large system.

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off.

Proof by analogy is fraud.

The most fundamental problem in software development is complexity. There is only one basic way of dealing with complexity: divide and conquer

Anybody who comes to you and says he has a perfect language is either naive or a salesman.

I find languages that support just one programming paradigm constraining

The most important single aspect of software development is to be clear about what you are trying to build.

I like doing research that has an impact. If I went to a company to make what they call 'real money,' I'd be just trying to make a system work as fast as possible to meet the product and serice deadlines.

How to test?" is a question that cannot be answered in general. "When to test?" however, does have a general answer: as early and as often as possible.

If you think it's simple, then you have misunderstood the problem.

An organisation that treats its programmers as morons will soon have programmers that are willing and able to act like morons only.

When done well, software is invisible.

It's easy to win forgiveness for being wrong; being right is what gets you into real trouble.

[Corporate programming] is often done to the point where the individual is completely submerged in corporate "culture" with no outlet for unique talents and skills. Corporate practices can be directly hostile to individuals with exceptional skills and initiative in technical matters. I consider such management of technical people cruel and wasteful.

Our civilization depends critically on software, and we have a dangerously low degree of professionalism in the computer fields

I assume that a sufficiently skilled will be able to do anything not explicitly forbidden by the hardware.

Design and programming are human activities; forget that and all is lost.

It is my firm belief that all successful languages are grown and not merely designed from first principles

Any verbose and tedious solution is error-prone because programmers get bored.

More good code has been written in languages denounced as "bad'' than in languages proclaimed "wonderful'' - much more.

My impression was and is that many programming languages and tools represent solutions looking for problems, and I was determined that my work should not fall into that category. Thus, I follow the literature on programming languages and the debates about programming languages primarily looking for ideas for solutions to problems my colleagues and I have encountered in real applications. Other programming languages constitute a mountain of ideas and inspiration-but it has to be mined carefully to avoid featurism and inconsistencies.

And no, I'm not a walking C++ dictionary. I do not keep every technical detail in my head at all times. If I did that, I would be a much poorer programmer. I do keep the main points straight in my head most of the time, and I do know where to find the details when I need them.

To many managers, getting rid of the arrogant, undisciplined, over-paid, technology-obsessed, improperly-dressed etc. programmers would appear to be a significant added benefit

C++ is my favorite garbage collected language because it generates so little garbage

A program that has not been tested does not work.

Destructors for virtual base classes are executed in the reverse order of their appearance in a depth-first left-to-right traversal of the directed acyclic graph of base classes.

The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best dangerous.

"Legacy code" often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling.

I do not think that safety should be bought at the cost of complicating the expression of good solutions to real-life problems.

Most of the programmers in ten years will be us, and we won't get much smarter.

Always think about how a piece of code should be used: good interfaces are the essence of good code. You can hide all kinds of clever and dirty code behind a good interface if you really need such code.