We Should Forget About Small Efficiencies, Say

In Fact What I Would Like To See Is Thousands Of Computer Scientists Let Loose To Do Whatever They Want. That's What Really Advances The Field.

In Fact, My Main Conclusion After Spending Ten Years Of My Life Working On The Tex Project Is That Software Is Hard. It's Harder Than Anything Else I've Ever Had To Do.

We Should Forget About Small Efficiencies, Say About 97% Of The Time: Premature Optimization Is The Root Of All Evil.

We Should Forget About Small Efficiencies, Say About 97% Of The Time: Premature Optimization Is The Root Of All Evil. Yet We Should Not Pass Up Our Opportunities In That Critical 3%

...one Of The Most Important Lessons, Perhaps, Is The Fact That Software Is Hard. From Now On I Shall Have Significantly Greater Respect For Every Successful Software Tool That I Encounter. During The Past Decade I Was Surprised To Learn That The Writing Of Programs For Tex And Metafont Proved To Be Much More Difficult Than All The Other Things I Had Done (like Proving Theorems Or Writing Books). The Creation Of Good Software Demand A Significiantly Higher Standard Of Accuracy Than Those Other Things Do, And It Requires A Longer Attention Span Than Other Intellectual Tasks.