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Other programming languages constitute a mountain of ideas and inspiration-but it has to be mined carefully to avoid featurism and inconsistencies.

Bjarne Stroustrup

When done well, software is invisible.
BJARNE STROUSTRUP

Done Invisible Software
I assume that a sufficiently skilled will be able to do anything not explicitly forbidden by the hardware.
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Able Assuming Forbidden
Clearly, I reject the view that there is one way that is right for everyone and for every problem.
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Problem Views Way
However, when Java is promoted as the sole programming language, its flaws and limitations become serious.
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Java Language Serious
There is no one “root of all evil” in software development. Design is hard in many ways.
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Creativity Engineering Simple
Design and programming are human activities; forget that and all is lost.
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Design Forget Lost
With the increasing importance of standards for system-level objects such as COM and CORBA, it is particularly important that the C++ bindings to those be clean, well documented, and simple to use.
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Important Language Simple Use
It is easy to study the rules of overloading and of templates without noticing that together they are one of the keys to elegant and efficient type-safe containers.
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Efficient Keys Safe Together
Destructors for virtual base classes are executed in the reverse order of their appearance in a depth-first left-to-right traversal of the directed acyclic graph of base classes.
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Class Depth Order
There are more useful systems developed in languages deemed awful than in languages praised for being beautiful – many more.
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Awful Beautiful Developed System
The most important single aspect of software development is to be clear about what you are trying to build.
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Important Learning Simplicity
Nobody should call themselves a professional if they only knew one language.
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Language Person Professional Should
Most of the programmers in ten years will be us, and we won’t get much smarter.
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Mathematics Science Years
You can hide all kinds of clever and dirty code behind a good interface if you really need such code.
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Code Good Interface Need Really
If you think it’s simple, then you have misunderstood the problem.
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Misunderstood Simple Thinking
Certainly not every good program is object-oriented, and not every object-oriented program is good.
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Good Objects Program Very
I do keep the main points straight in my head most of the time, and I do know where to find the details when I need them.
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Details Find Head Need
Anybody who comes to you and says he has a perfect language is either naive or a salesman.
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Language Perfect Salesman
People who passionately want to believe that the world is basically simple react to this with a fury that goes beyond what I consider appropriate for discussing a programming language.
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Believe Discussing People Simple
The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close.
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Connections Errors Thinking
Our civilization depends critically on software, and we have a dangerously low degree of professionalism in the computer fields
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Civilization Degree Fields
This evolution may compromise Java’s claim of being simpler than C++, but my guess is that the effort will make Java a better language than it is today.
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Effort Java May
Defining OO as based on the use of class hierarchies and virtual functions is also practical in that it provides some guidance as to where OO is likely to be successful.
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Class Function Hirerachies Successful Use
Some software is actually pretty good, by any standard. Think of the Mars Rovers, Google, and the Human Genome Project. Now, that’s quality software!
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Google Quality Thinking
There’s an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to use as his telephone. That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to use my telephone.
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Stories Technology Wish
I find languages that support just one programming paradigm constraining
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Language Programming Support
Always think about how a piece of code should be used: good interfaces are the essence of good code.
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Clever Dirty Thinking

Other programming languages constitute a mountain of ideas and inspiration-but it has to be mined carefully to avoid featurism and inconsistencies.

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Other programming languages constitute a mountain of ideas and inspiration-but it has to be mined carefully to avoid featurism and inconsistencies.

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