Bjarne Stroustrup

Bjarne Stroustrup (born December 30, 1950) is a computer scientist and creator of the C++ programming language.

Quotes



 * I'm convinced that you could design a language about a tenth of the size of C++ (whichever way you measure size) providing roughly what C++ does.


 * Within C++, there is a much smaller and cleaner language struggling to get out.
 * . A later clarification adds, "And no, that smaller and cleaner language is not Java or C#."


 * Proof by analogy is fraud.


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


 * A program that has not been tested does not work.


 * "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.


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


 * Anybody who comes to you and says he has a perfect language is either naïve or a salesman.
 * in C++ 0x - An Overview at University of Waterloo Computer Science Club


 * There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.


 * Far too often, "software engineering" is neither engineering nor about software.


 * I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone.
 * On his homepage, Bjarne Stroustrup states that he did say the above sentence, but also adds "I very much doubt that the sentiment is original."


 * People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we don't.


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


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


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


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


 * [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.


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


 * 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.


 * If you do anything useful it will haunt you forever after, and if you have a major success you get decades of hard manual labor - meaning you have to work on the manual.


 * One of the things I really like about programming languages is that it's the perfect excuse to stick your nose into any field. So if you're interested in high energy physics and the structure of the universe, being a programmer is one of the best ways to get in there. It's probably easier than becoming a theoretical physicist
 * "Bjarne Stroustrup - The Essence of C++" talk on 28 April 2014 at the University of Edinburgh's George Square Lecture Theatre.


 * Maybe "just one little global variable" isn't too unmanageable, but that style leads to code that is useless except to its original programmer