CodeQuotes » Quality and Testing

Kent Beck on TDD and fear

Neal Enssle — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:24:09 +0000

“Test-driven development is a way of managing fear during programming.”

— Kent Beck, Test-Driven Development by Example

Fowler on ugly code

Neal Enssle — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:19:52 +0000

“Even so the program works. Is this not just an aesthetic judgment, a dislike of ugly code? It is until we want to change the system. The compiler doesn’t care whether the code is ugly or clean. But when we change the system, there is a human involved, and humans do care. A poorly designed system is hard to change. Hard because it is hard to figure out where the changes are needed. If it is hard to figure out what to change, there is a strong chance that the programmer will make a mistake and introduce bugs.”

— Martin Fowler, Refactoring

Appleton: No code

Neal Enssle — Sun, 25 May 2008 03:18:14 +0000

“There is No CODE That is More Flexible Than NO Code!”

— Brad Appleton

Parnas: Software systems

Neal Enssle — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 09:05:46 +0000

“As a rule, software systems do not work well until they have been used, and have failed repeatedly, in real applications.”

— Dave Parnas

Kernigan: Debugging

Neal Enssle — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 10:02:41 +0000

“Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”

— Brian Kernigan

Maguire: Trying solutions

Neal Enssle — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 10:58:28 +0000

“Don’t keep “trying” solutions until you find one that works. Take the time to find the correct solution.”

— Steve Maguire, Writing Solid Code

Beizer: Bugs lurk in corners

Neal Enssle — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:03:21 +0000

“Bugs lurk in corners and congregate at boundaries.”

— Boris Beizer

Dijkstra: Bugs and testing

Neal Enssle — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 13:30:45 +0000

“Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!”

— Edsger Dijkstra

Guthrie: Quality

Neal Enssle — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:11:37 +0000

“There is an old saying with software that three years from now, no one will remember if you shipped an awesome software release a few months late. What customers will still remember three years from now is if you shipped a software release that wasn’t ready a few months too soon. It takes multiple product releases to change people’s quality perception about one bad release.”

— Scott Guthrie