44 Quotes by Niklaus Wirth

Experience shows that the success of a programming course critically depends on the choice of these examples.

Indeed, the woes of Software Engineering are not due to lack of tools, or proper management, but largely due to lack of sufficient technical competence.

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.

The possible solutions to a given problem emerge as the leaves of a tree, each node representing a point of deliberation and decision.

Clearly, programming courses should teach methods of design and construction, and the selected examples should be such that a gradual development can be nicely demonstrated.

It is evidently necessary to generate and test candidates for solutions in some systematic manner.

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.

Usually its users discover sooner or later that their program does not deliver all the desired results, or worse, that the results requested were not the ones really needed.

Yet, I am convinced that there is a need for high quality software, and the time will come when it will be recognized that it is worth investing effort in its development and in using a careful, structured approach based on safe, structured languages.