## Notable Programmers and Their Quotes (Chronological Order) - [**Ada Lovelace** (1815-1852)](https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/ada-lovelace-the-first-tech-visionary): First computer programmer - "Imagination is the Discovering Faculty, pre-eminently. It is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us, the worlds of Science." - "The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform." - [**John von Neumann** (1903-1957)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-von-Neumann): Hungarian-American mathematician and computer science pioneer - "If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is." - "In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them." - [**Grace Hopper** (1906-1992)](https://president.yale.edu/biography-grace-murray-hopper): Invented first compiler, popularized "bug" term - "A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for." *(Often used by Hopper; originally from John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic, 1928)* - "The only phrase I've ever disliked is, 'Why, we've always done it that way.' I always tell young people, 'Go ahead and do it. You can always apologize later.'" - [**Alan Turing** (1912-1954)](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing/): Father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence - "We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done." - [**Hedy Lamarr** (1914-2000)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hedy-Lamarr): Austrian-American actress and inventor of frequency hopping technology - "Hope and curiosity about the future seemed better than guarantees. That's the way I was. The unknown was always so attractive to me... and still is." - "All creative people want to do the unexpected." - [**Christopher Strachey** (1916-1975)](https://history.computer.org/pioneers/strachey.html): Pioneer in programming language design - "It is impossible to foresee the consequences of being clever, so you try to avoid it whenever you can." - [**Katherine Johnson** (1918-2020)](https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/langley/katherine-johnson-biography/): NASA mathematician whose calculations were critical to early U.S. space missions - "I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed." - "Like what you do, and then you will do your best." - [**Frances Allen** (1932-2020)](https://www.ibm.com/history/frances-allen): Compiler optimization pioneer, first female Turing Award winner - "I hope that I've been able to be some kind of role model, and I hope I've been able to help other women along the way." - [**Margaret Hamilton** (1936-present)](https://news.mit.edu/2016/scene-at-mit-margaret-hamilton-apollo-code-0817): Led Apollo space program software development - "Software during the early days of this project was treated like a stepchild and not taken as seriously as other engineering disciplines." - "Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world. There was no choice but to be pioneers." - [**Lynn Conway** (1938-2024)](https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-memoriam-lynn-conway-1938-2024/): Pioneering computer scientist and electrical engineer - "If you want to change the future, start living as if you're already there." - [**Donald Knuth** (1938-present)](https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Knuth/): Computer scientist and mathematician, creator of TeX - "Premature optimization is the root of all evil." *(Full quote: "We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil." The underlying sentiment is also attributed to Tony Hoare.)* - "Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do." - [**Alan Kay** (1940-present)](https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/kay_3972189.cfm): Pioneered object-oriented programming and graphical user interfaces, Turing Award winner - "Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it." - [**Barbara Liskov** (1939-present)](https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/liskov_1108679.cfm): Developed Liskov Substitution Principle, Turing Award winner - [**Jerry Lawson** (1940-2011)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jerry-Lawson): African American engineer who created the first cartridge-based video game console - "The whole reason I did games was because people said, 'You can't do it.' I'm one of the guys, if you tell me I can't do something, I'll turn around and do it." - [**Dennis Ritchie** (1941-2011)](https://www.nae.edu/190631/DENNIS-M-RITCHIE-19412011): Creator of C programming language and co-developer of Unix - "Sometimes when you fill a vacuum, it still sucks." - "UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity." - [**Radia Perlman** (1951-present)](https://www.invent.org/inductees/radia-perlman): "Mother of the Internet," invented spanning-tree protocol - "I don't want to be known as the 'mother of the internet.' The internet has no mother." - "The world would be a better place if more engineers, like me, hated technology. The stuff I design, if I'm successful, nobody will ever notice." - [**Guido van Rossum** (1956-present)](https://gvanrossum.github.io/): Creator of Python programming language - "Computer programming is fun and extraordinarily useful. All schools should be teaching it." - [**Sophie Wilson** (1957-present)](https://computerhistory.org/profile/sophie-wilson/): Designer of the ARM processor instruction set - "Not knowing something is impossible has interesting effects on your work." - [**Shafi Goldwasser** (1958-present)](https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/goldwasser_8627889.cfm): Cryptography and complexity theory expert, Turing Award winner - "Cryptography is the art of creating mathematical assurances for who can do what with data." - [**Tim Cook** (1960-present)](https://www.apple.com/leadership/tim-cook/): CEO of Apple Inc. - "You want to be the pebble in the pond that creates the ripple for change." - [**Megan Smith** (1964-present)](https://kids.kiddle.co/Megan_Smith): Former CTO of the United States under President Obama - "We know that diversity can sometimes be more uncomfortable because things are less familiar - but it gets the best results." - [**Satya Nadella** (1967-present)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Satya-Nadella): Indian-American CEO of Microsoft - "The best code is poetry." - "Innovation happens when you bring diverse perspectives together and allow for constructive disagreement." - [**Linus Torvalds** (1969-present)](https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/linus-torvalds): Creator of Linux and Git - "I'm not a visionary. I'm an engineer. I'm happy with the people who are wandering around looking at the stars, but I am looking at the ground and I want to fix the pothole before I fall in." - "Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships."