Here, We found 90 Best Software Engineering Quotes, Amazing Programming Quotes, and Sayings. These software engineering quotes are very inspiring and I felt these will motivate other programmers too and help to keep away from common pitfalls in development, and hence I thought sharing these software engineer quotes and captions with everybody.

Software Engineering Quotes

• Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
• A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
• Programmer’s Drinking Song-99 little bugs in the code,
  99 bugs in the code,
  fix one bug, compile it again,
  101 little bugs in the code.
  101 little bugs in the code….
  (Repeat until BUGS = 0)
• The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time…The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.
• Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
• The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned. Many software tasks have this characteristic because of the sequential nature of debugging.
• Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
• If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilisation.
• Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers think it is good for programmers and programmers hate it!.
• Programming can be fun, so can cryptography; however they should not be combined.
• It’s OK to figure out murder mysteries, but you shouldn’t need to figure out code. You should be able to read it.
• An organization that treats its programmers as morons will soon have programmers that are willing and able to act like morons only.
• Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.
• Real programmers can write assembly code in any language.
• I think it’s a new feature. Don’t tell anyone it was an accident.
• Theory is when you know something, but it doesn’t work. Practice is when something works, but you don’t know why. Programmers combine theory and practice: Nothing works and they don’t know why.
• For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
• There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.
• You cannot teach beginners top-down programming, because they don’t know which end is up.
• The software isn’t finished until the last user is dead.
• It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than 10 functions on 10 data structures.
• Why do we never have time to do it right, but always have time to do it over?.
• The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we’ve finished building it.
• Better train people and risk they leave – than do nothing and risk they stay.
• There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad programs.
• Just because you don’t know a technology, doesn’t mean you won’t be called upon to work with it.
• The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That’s where we come in; we’re computer professionals. We cause accidents.
• Documentation is like sex; when it’s good, it’s very, very good, and when it’s bad, it’s better than nothing.
• Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
• Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
• Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.
• But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses.
• The best performance improvement is the transition from the nonworking state to the working state.
• If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong.
• … nearly everybody is convinced that every style but their own is ugly and unreadable. Leave out the “but their own” and they’re probably right…

Amazing Programming Quotes

• Any fool can use a computer. Many do.
• Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.
• It’s not at all important to get it right the first time. It’s vitally important to get it right the last time.
• PHP is a minor evil perpetrated and created by incompetent amateurs, whereas Perl is a great and insidious evil, perpetrated by skilled but perverted professionals.
• Remember that there is no code faster than no code.
• It’s hard to read through a book on the principles of magic without glancing at the cover periodically to make sure it isn’t a book on software design.
• A language that doesn’t have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do.
• If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
• 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.
• In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
• Once a new technology starts rolling, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road.
• If you have a procedure with ten parameters, you probably missed some.
• There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third works.
• I did say something along the lines of “C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows your whole leg off.”
• UNIX is simple. It just takes a genius to understand its simplicity.
• When someone says, “I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done,” give him a lollipop.
• That’s the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.
• I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
• It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to Basic; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
• The perfect project plan is possible if one first documents a list of all the unknowns.
• There’s no obfuscated Perl contest because it’s pointless.
• Software and cathedrals are much the same – first we build them, then we pray.
• If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.
• If you need more than 3 levels of indentation, you’re screwed anyway, and should fix your program.
• A Perl program is correct if it gets the job done before your boss fires you.
• He who hasn’t hacked assembly language as a youth has no heart. He who does as an adult has no brain.
• The camel has evolved to be relatively self-sufficient. On the other hand, the camel has not evolved to smell good. Neither has Perl.
• Don’t get suckered in by the comments … they can be terribly misleading.
• If you think good architecture is expensive, try bad architecture.
• I don’t know or trust Demeter.
• It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter.
• If a million monkeys were typing on computers, one of them will eventually write a Java program. The rest of them will write Perl programs.
• Unix was not designed to stop people from doing stupid things, because that would also stop them from doing clever things.
• First you listen to the users; then you ignore them.
• The hardest part of design … is keeping features out.
• Computers are high-speed idiots, programmed by low-speed idiots.
• The C language combines all the power of assembly language with all the ease-of-use of assembly language.
• The key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
• Linux sucks twice as fast and 10 times more reliably, and since you have the source, it’s your fault.
• If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution.
• Always code as if the person who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
• C++ : an octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.
• Python: executable pseudocode. Perl: executable line noise.
• In a room full of top software designers, if two agree on the same thing, that’s a majority.
• If at first you don’t succeed, call it version 1.0
• One: demonstrations always crash. And two: the probability of them crashing goes up exponentially with the number of people watching.
• There has never been an unexpectedly short debugging period in the history of computers.
• It has been discovered that C++ provides a remarkable facility for concealing the trival details of a program — such as where its bugs are.
• Whoever thought of putting coders in noise-transparent cubicles needs to be beaten with a cluebat.
• I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
• There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in the home.
• But what… is it good for?
• I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.
• While a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 10000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers of the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons.