44 Quotes by Niklaus Wirth

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.

Good engineering is characterized by gradual, stepwise refinement of products that yields increased performance under given constraints and with given resources.

Programming is usually taught by examples.

Whereas Europeans generally pronounce my name the right way ('Ni-klows Wirt'), Americans invariably mangle it into 'Nick-les Worth'. This is to say that Europeans call me by name, but Americans call me by value.

Our ultimate goal is extensible programming. By this, we mean the construction of hierarchies of modules, each module adding new functionality to the system.

Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster.

Prolific programmers contribute to certain disaster.

Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling -- the incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration.

Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster. (Or, sometimes known by] Grove [the head of Intel] giveth and Gates [the head of Microsoft] taketh away.)