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Brian W. Kernighan Quotes

Brian Wilson Kernighan is a Canadian computer scientist who worked at Bell Labs alongside Unix creators Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie and contributed to the development of Unix. He is also coauthor of the AWK and AMPL programming languages. The "K" of K&R C and the "K" in AWK both stand for "Kernighan". Since 2000 Brian Kernighan has been a Professor at the Computer Science Department of Princeton University, where he is also the Undergraduate Department Representative.

✵ 1. January 1942
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Brian W. Kernighan: 6   quotes 0   likes

Famous Brian W. Kernighan Quotes

“Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?”

Brian W. Kernighan

" The Elements of Programming Style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Programming_Style", 2nd edition, chapter 2.

“Do what you think is interesting, do something that you think is fun and worthwhile, because otherwise you won't do it well anyway.”

Brian W. Kernighan

An Interview with Brian Kernighan from the PC Report Romania http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mihaib/kernighan-interview/.

“Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.”

Brian W. Kernighan

Software Tools (1976), p. 319 (with P. J. Plauger).

“The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements.”

Brian W. Kernighan

"Unix for Beginners" (1979).

“Advice to students: Leap in and try things. If you succeed, you can have enormous influence. If you fail, you have still learned something, and your next attempt is sure to be better for it. Advice to graduates: Do something you really enjoy doing. If it isn’t fun to get up in the morning and do your job or your school program, you’re in the wrong field.”

Brian W. Kernighan

"Leap In and Try Things: Interview with Brian Kernighan" https://web.archive.org/web/20110701151454/http://www.harmonyatwork.in/blog/2009/10/leap-in-and-try-things-brian-kernighan/ from Harmony at Work blog http://www.harmonyatwork.in/blog/.

“Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs.”

Brian W. Kernighan

Programming Pearls http://www.bowdoin.edu/~ltoma/teaching/cs340/spring05/coursestuff/Bentley_BumperSticker.pdf. CACM. 28 (9). September 1985

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