Fernando J. Corbato Quotes

#1. The computer field is intoxicated with change. We have seen galloping growth over a period of four decades and it still does not seem to be slowing down. The field is not mature yet and already it accounts for a significant percentage of the Gross National Product.

Fernando J. Corbato

#2. The number of lines of code a programmer can write in a fixed period of time is the same independent of the language used.

Fernando J. Corbato

#3. To our dismay, users who had been enduring several hour waits between jobs run under batch processing were suddenly restless when response times were more than a second.

Fernando J. Corbato

#4. Design bugs are often subtle and occur by evolution with early assumptions being forgotten as new features or uses are added to systems.

Fernando J. Corbato

#5. The use of the high level language made each programmer a factor of 5 to 10 more productive in a coding sense and more concerned with the semantics than the syntax of modules.

Fernando J. Corbato

#6. Because one has to be an optimist to begin an ambitious project, it is not surprising that underestimation of completion time is the norm.

Fernando J. Corbato

#7. Regardless of whether one is dealing with assembly language or compiler language, the number of debugged lines of source code per day is about the same!

Fernando J. Corbato

#8. My definition of elegance is the achievement of a given functionality with a minimum of mechanism and a maximum of clarity.

Fernando J. Corbato

#9. The general problem with ambitious systems is complexity. [ ... ] it is important to emphasize the value of simplicity and elegance, for complexity has a way of compounding difficulties.

Fernando J. Corbato