The Music Makers

Normally quote pages are full of pithy, over-used and only marginally funny quotes that you probably have read before, but this page is different.
http://www.sysprog.net/quotpgmr.html

Some of my favorites include:
To many managers, getting rid of the arrogant, undisciplined, over-paid, technology-obsessed, improperly-dressed etc. programmers would appear to be a significant added benefit. (Bjarne Stroustrup)


Mostly, when you see programmers, they aren't doing anything. One of the attractive things about programmers is that you cannot tell whether or not they are working simply by looking at them. Very often they're sitting there seemingly drinking coffee and gossiping, or just staring into space. What the programmer is trying to do is get a handle on all the individual and unrelated ideas that are scampering around in his head. (Charles M Strauss)

It is overwhelmingly comforting to know that there are people out there that understand this.


The programmer, who needs clarity, who must talk all day to a machine that demands declarations, hunkers down into a low-grade annoyance. It is here that the stereotype of the programmer, sitting in a dim room, growling from behind Coke cans, has its origins. The disorder of the desk, the floor; the yellow Post-It notes everywhere; the whiteboards covered with scrawl: all this is the outward manifestation of the messiness of human thought. The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer. (Ellen Ullman)

This actually describes my working environment, right down to the whiteboard not 3 feet from my head covered in inane scribbles.