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Brian Kernighan Quotes

born 1942 Canada

Brian Wilson Kernighan (born January 1, 1942) is a computer scientist who worked at the Bell Labs and contributed to the design of the pioneering AWK and AMPL programming languages. He is most well-known for his co-authorship, with Dennis Ritchie, of the first book on the C programming language.

Canada
Academics
Computer scientists
Non-fiction authors
Programmers

Also known as: Brian W. Kernighan, Kernighan, Brian

Random Brian Kernighan quote

8 quotes

Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.

Software Tools (1976)

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?

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

Unix for Beginners (1979)

Mechanical rules are never a substitute for clarity of thought.

Software Tools (1976)

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

The Practice of Programming (1999)

But you wonder whether it [C++] has passed beyond some threshold of complexity that's beyond mortals.

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

Associative arrays are very very useful things and if you are only going to have one data structure that's the one to have. Because you could build everything else with it if you want.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Brian Kernighan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.