Hacker News Reader

I agree with everything above, but I would like to sum it up in my own words: we (as a species) were so new at writing software, that we had no idea of its inherent complexities. Programming was an after-thought for those that designed the first computers.

View on HN

As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.

— Maurice Wilkes

Reply on news.ycombinator.com