The Quotation IndexThe trusted reference for quotations and the sources behind them
Tag Tag Complexity
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.
Tony Hoare The Emperor’s Old Clothes · 1981

Quotes

“The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity.”

Tony Hoare · The Emperor’s Old Clothes, 1981 · Primary source

“The great defect of scale, of course, which makes the game interesting, so that the big people don’t always win—is that as you get big, you get the bureaucracy.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intentions of its user.”

Tony Hoare · An Axiomatic Basis for Computer Programming, 1969 · Primary source

“Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out.”

Tony Hoare · Efficient Production of Large Programs, 1970 · Secondary source

“Most problems in real life are poorly understood, in that the real problem is often something different from what it is orginally thought to be.”

Tony Hoare · Computer Science, 1971 · Primary source

“In the development of our understanding of complex phenomena, the most powerful tool available to the human intellect is abstraction. Abstraction arises from a recognition of similarities between certain objects, situations, or processes in the real world, and the decision to concentrate on these similarities, and to ignore for the time being the differences.”

Tony Hoare · Structured Programming, 1972 · Primary source

“I’m afraid that’s the way it [reality] is. If there are twenty factors and they interact some, you’ll have to learn to handle it—because that’s the way the world is. But you won’t find it that hard if you go at it Darwin-like, step by step with curious persistence. You’ll be amazed at how good you can get.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Many computer programs of the present day are of inordinate size—many thousands of pages of closely printed text. Mathematics has no tradition of dealing with expressions on this scale.”

Tony Hoare · The Mathematics of Programming, 1985 · Primary source

Related Tags

Software design 4 Simplicity 24 Reliability 12 Hoare’s law 2 Programming 4 Problem-solving 9 Understanding 15 Analysis 3 Design 3 Abstraction 3 Reasoning 7 Generalisation 2 Trade-offs 6 Scale 1 Mathematics 3 Software 2 Verification 2 Systems thinking 1 Curiosity 19 Persistence 18 Charles Darwin 2 Bureaucracy 1 Organisational scale 1 Corporate growth 1 Efficiency 7