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. "corby" CorbatóIt is important to emphasize the value of simplicity and elegance, for complexity has a way of compounding difficulties and as we have seen, creating mistakes. My definition of elegance is the achievement of a given functionality with a minimum of mechanism and a maximum of clarity.
Fernando J. "corby" CorbatóClearly, one can obfuscate one's ideas with a compiler language but it's harder. To some extent one is talking about what one wants rather than how one wants to do it. The trouble with machine code, of course, is that when you look at a random section of machine code you don't know what properties of the instructions the programmer really wanted to exploit.
Fernando J. "corby" CorbatóRegardless 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. "corby" CorbatóBecause 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. "corby" CorbatóThe 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. "corby" CorbatóTo 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. "corby" CorbatóDesign bugs are often subtle and occur by evolution with early assumptions being forgotten as new features or uses are added to systems.
Fernando J. "corby" Corbató