Top 30 Kent Beck Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Make it work, make it right, make it fast.”

— Kent Beck

Featured in: Programming Quotes, Work Ethic Quotes, IT Quotes, Quotes About Work, Technology Quotes

2. “I’m not a great programmer; I’m just a good programmer with great habits.”

— Kent Beck

Featured in: Programming Quotes, Positive Work Quotes, Habit Quotes

3. “The business changes. The technology changes. The team changes. The team members change. The problem isn’t change, per se, because change is going to happen; the problem, rather, is the inability to cope with change when it comes.”

— Kent Beck

Featured in: IT Quotes, Adaptability Quotes

4. “Listening, Testing, Coding, Designing. That’s all there is to software. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.”

— Kent Beck

Featured in: Quotes About Listening

5. “Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming; feedback is the treatment.”

— Kent Beck

Featured in: Programming Quotes

6. “Testing is not the point. The point is about responsibility.”

— Kent Beck

7. “If testing costs more than not testing, then don’t test.”

— Kent Beck

8. “If you’re having trouble succeeding, fail.”

— Kent Beck

9. “Of the four project development variables – scope, cost, time and quality – quality isn’t really a free variable. The only possible values are “excellent” and “insanely excellent”, depending on whether lives are at stake.”

— Kent Beck

10. “I’ve known people who have not mastered their tools who are good programmers, but not a tool master who remained a mediocre programmer.”

— Kent Beck

Featured in: Programming Quotes

11. “I mean, source code in files; how quaint, how seventies!”

— Kent Beck

12. “A plan is an example of what could happen, not a prediction of what will happen.”

— Kent Beck

13. “Responsible Development is the style of development I aspire to now. It can be summarized by answering the question, How would I develop if it were my money? I’m amazed how many theoretical arguments evaporate when faced with this question.”

— Kent Beck

14. “Sometimes the problem has to mature before the solution can mature.”

— Kent Beck

15. “In software development, “perfect” is a verb, not an adjective. There is no perfect process. There is no perfect design. There are no perfect stories. You can, however, perfect your process, your design, and your stories.”

— Kent Beck

16. “Write tests until fear is transformed into boredom.”

— Kent Beck

17. “I don’t like the feeling, but I’ve got to say that a little fear makes me a more focused, more responsible programmer.”

— Kent Beck

Featured in: Programming Quotes

18. “No matter the circumstance you can always improve. You can always start improving with yourself. You can always start improving today.”

— Kent Beck

19. “How good the design is doesn’t matter near as much as whether the design is getting better or worse. If it is getting better, day by day, I can live with it forever. If it is getting worse, I will die.”

— Kent Beck

20. “Software development is a game of insight, and insight comes to the prepared, rested, relaxed mind.”

— Kent Beck

21. “Without planning, we are individuals with haphazard connections and effectiveness. We are a team when we plan and work in harmony.”

— Kent Beck

22. “Learning research tells us that the time lag from experiment to feedback is critical...”

— Kent Beck

23. “I tell people to start implementing when they are pretty sure there aren’t more important stories out there. An iteration’s worth of data is worth months of speculation.”

— Kent Beck

24. “The system metaphor is a story that everyone – customers, programmers, and managers – can tell about how the system works.”

— Kent Beck

25. “Pair programmers: Keep each other on task. Brainstorm refinements to the system. Clarify ideas. Take initiative when their partner is stuck, thus lowering frustration. Hold each other accountable to the team’s practices. Pairing.”

— Kent Beck

26. “The community isn’t nearly as afraid as it thinks it is.”

— Kent Beck

27. “Brilliance in a scientist does not consist in being right more often but in being wrong about more interesting topics.”

— Kent Beck

28. “Responsibility cannot be assigned; it can only be accepted. If someone tries to give you responsibility, only you can decide if you are responsible or if you aren’t.”

— Kent Beck

29. “Sit Together Develop in an open space big enough for the whole team. Meet the need for privacy and “owned” space by having small private spaces nearby or by limiting work hours so team members can get their privacy needs met elsewhere.”

— Kent Beck

30. “Rather than apply minutes of suspect reasoning, we can just ask the computer by making the change and running the tests.”

— Kent Beck