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Good engineering is characterized by gradual, stepwise refinement of products that yields increased performance under given constraints and with given resources.

Niklaus Wirth

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Niklaus Wirth
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: February 15
Computer Scientist
Engineer
Programmer
University Teacher
Winterthur ZH
Niklaus Emil Wirth
Niklaus E. Wirth
Resources
Constraints
Products
Increased
Given
Engineering
Good
Programming
Software
Characterized
Yield
Yields
Performance
Gradual
Performances
Refinement

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My being a teacher had a decisive influence on making language and systems as simple as possible so that in my teaching, I could concentrate on the essential issues of programming rather than on details of language and notation.
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Program construction consists of a sequence of refinement steps.
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Time pressure gradually corrupts an engineer's standard of quality and perfection. It has a detrimental effect on people as well as products
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Software development is technical activity conducted by human beings.
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Our ultimate goal is extensible programming. By this, we mean the construction of hierarchies of modules, each module adding new functionality to the system.
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But active programming consists of the design of new programs, rather than contemplation of old programs.
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Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.
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The idea that one might derive satisfaction from his or her successful work, because that work is ingenious, beautiful, or just pleasing, has become ridiculed.
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I have never designed a language for its own sake.
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Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster. (Or, sometimes known by] Grove [the head of Intel] giveth and Gates [the head of Microsoft] taketh away.)
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A primary cause of complexity is that software vendors uncritically adopt almost any feature that users want.
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Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster.
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It is evidently necessary to generate and test candidates for solutions in some systematic manner.
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C++ is an insult to the human brain
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Go To statement considered harmful.
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Prolific programmers contribute to certain disaster.
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Reliable and transparent programs are usually not in the interest of the designer.
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The belief that complex systems require armies of designers and programmers is wrong. A system that is not understood in its entirety, or at least to a significant degree of detail by a single individual, should probably not be built.
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