Hungarian mathematician Alfréd Rényi (1921-1970) is credited for saying, “A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.”
 
“Programmer—an organism that turns coffee into software” has been cited in print since at least 1994. It’s not known who first said this popular variation.
 
     
Wikipedia: Alfréd Rényi
Alfréd Rényi (20 March 1921 – 1 February 1970) was a Hungarian mathematician who made contributions in combinatorics, graph theory, number theory but mostly in probability theory.
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Quotations
Rényi, who was addicted to coffee, is the source of the quote: “A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems”, which is generally ascribed to Erdős. It has been suggested that this sentence was originally formulated in German, where it can be interpreted as a wordplay on the double meaning of the word Satz (theorem or coffee residue), but it is more likely that the original formulation was in Hungarian.
 
Google Groups: comp.sys.novell
Print jobs mixing up
David B. Ferguson
11/11/94
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Programmer - a organism that turns coffee into software
   
Google Groups: comp.lang.clipper
beginner’s problem: how to compile?
David B. Ferguson
9/30/95
(...)
Programmer - an organism that turns coffee into software
 
Google Groups: comp.unix.aix
Merging forms into text stream and LPD to network printer…
Alan R. Vidmar
3/12/97
(...)
“A programmer is a person who turns coffee into software.”
 
Google Books
Pro OpenSolaris
By Harry Foxwell and Christine Tra
New York, NY: Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
2009
Pg. 153:
Developer, n: an organism that turns coffee into software. —Author Unknown
 
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Samsung Developers
‏@SamsungDevUS
#Programmer - An organism that turns coffee into software.
4:46 PM - 10 Jun 2014
 
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“Programmer - an organism that turns coffee into software.” - unknown #programming #coding #quotes
1:00 PM - 12 Feb 2015