Some of my favorite quotes about computer software:

The difference between a tolerable programmer and a great programmer is not how many programming languages they know, and it’s not whether they prefer Python or Java. It’s whether they can communicate their ideas. By persuading other people, they get leverage. By writing clear comments and technical specs, they let other programmers understand their code, which means other programmers can use and work with their code instead of rewriting it. Absent this, their code is worthless. ... [N]obody knows what they’ve done and [otherwise] brilliant code languishes.

– Joel Spolsky

This is what I find most encouraging about the writing trades: They allow mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise their stupidity, to edit themselves into something like intelligence.

— Kurt Vonnegut

(Mr. Vonnegut was referring to writing prose, but I think it applies equally well if not better to authoring software.)

Well, Mr. Frankel…began to suffer from the computer disease that anyone who works with computers now knows about. It's a very serious disease, and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you play with them. They are so wonderful. They have these switches—if it's an even number you do this, if it's an odd number you do that—and soon you can do more and more elaborate things if you are clever enough, on one machine.

—Richard Feynman