Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.

Trying to outsmart a compiler defeats much of the purpose of using one.

I want students to understand specific technologies, but the real goal is that they should be able to reason about how systems work and be intelligently skeptical about technology so that, when they're running the world in a few years, they'll do a good job.

No matter what, the way to learn to program is to write code and rewrite it and see it used and rewrite again. Reading other people's code is invaluable as well.

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

I had spent the summer of 1966 working at MIT in the group that was the MIT component of the Multics effort.

Anytime you want to hear about graph partitioning, I will be glad to tell you what I know about graph partitioning. It remains a standard problem. I think it's an interesting problem, because it shows up in a variety of guises in real life.

As we said in the preface to the first edition, C wears well as one's experience with it grows. With a decade more experience, we still feel that way.

No matter how non-technical your life and work, you're going to have to interact with technology and technical people. If you know something about how devices and systems operate, it's a big advantage.

I seem to get totally wrapped up in teaching and working with students during the school year. During the summer, I try to spend time in the real world, writing code for therapy and perhaps for some useful purpose.

Trivia rarely affect efficiency. Are all the machinations worth it, when their primary effect is to make the code less readable?

C is a razor-sharp tool, with which one can create an elegant and efficient program or a bloody mess.

It is a fundamental principle of testing that you must know in advance the answer each test case is supposed to produce. If you don't, you are not testing; you are experimenting.

If you don't understand viruses, phishing, and similar threats, you become more susceptible to them. If you don't know how social networks leak information that you thought was private, you're likely to reveal much more than you realize.

Believe the terrain, not the map.

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?

Computers and computing are all around us. Some computing is highly visible, like your laptop. But this is only part of a computing iceberg. A lot more lies hidden below the surface. We don't see and usually don't think about the computers inside appliances, cars, airplanes, cameras, smartphones, GPS navigators and games.

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.

Even though most people won't be directly involved with programming, everyone is affected by computers, so an educated person should have a good understanding of how computer hardware, software, and networks operate.

Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.