computers quotes

A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure
that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with
vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying
'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new
names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an
unnatural entity exist?"
The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are
disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from
its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming
beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?"
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

There was once a programmer who worked upon microprocessors. “Look at
how well off I am here,” he said to a mainframe programmer who came to visit,
"I have my own operating system and file storage device. I do not have to
share my resources with anyone. The software is self-consistent and
easy-to-use. Why do you not quit your present job and join me here?"
The mainframe programmer then began to describe his system to his
friend, saying: "The mainframe sits like an ancient sage meditating in the
midst of the data center. Its disk drives lie end-to-end like a great ocean
of machinery. The software is a multi-faceted as a diamond and as convoluted
as a primeval jungle. The programs, each unique, move through the system
like a swift-flowing river. That is why I am happy where I am."
The microcomputer programmer, upon hearing this, fell silent. But the
two programmers remained friends until the end of their days.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

Does a good farmer neglect a crop he has planted?
Does a good teacher overlook even the most humble student?
Does a good father allow a single child to starve?
Does a good programmer refuse to maintain his code?
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden: Languages
whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits
LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf.
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982

VMS Beer: Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top
and sipping. However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or
contain extremely un-beer-like contents.

A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention,
with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequilla.
-- Mitch Ratcliffe

A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something
undreamed of by its author.
-- S. C. Johnson

A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program
in than some that do.
-- Dennis M. Ritchie

A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used.
-- D. Gries

Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I
saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer
magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store. Does
it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won
secrets of computer technology? Remember how all the lawyers cried foul
when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are they taking no-fault
insurance lying down? No way! But at the current rate it won't be long
before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the
A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be impressed with us electrical
engineers then? Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store?
-- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President

Thus spake the master programmer:
"Without the wind, the grass does not move. Without software,
hardware is useless."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso

A manager asked a programmer how long it would take him to finish the
program on which he was working. "I will be finished tomorrow," the programmer
promptly replied.
"I think you are being unrealistic," said the manager. "Truthfully,
how long will it take?"
The programmer thought for a moment. "I have some features that I wish
to add. This will take at least two weeks," he finally said.
"Even that is too much to expect," insisted the manager, "I will be
satisfied if you simply tell me when the program is complete."
The programmer agreed to this.
Several years later, the manager retired. On the way to his
retirement lunch, he discovered the programmer asleep at his terminal.
He had been programming all night.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach.
-- S.C. Johnson

A person who is more than casually interested in computers should be well
schooled in machine language, since it is a fundamental part of a computer.
-- Donald Knuth

We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on
when it's necessary to compromise.
-- Larry Wall

Thus spake the master programmer:
"Let the programmers be many and the managers few -- then all will
be productive."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions
that make it fail.
-- Jerry Ogdin

A CONS is an object which cares.
-- Bernie Greenberg.

Assembly language experience is [important] for the maturity
and understanding of how computers work that it provides.
-- D. Gries

Why are programmers non-productive?
Because their time is wasted in meetings.

Why are programmers rebellious?
Because the management interferes too much.

Why are the programmers resigning one by one?
Because they are burnt out.

Having worked for poor management, they no longer value their jobs.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

In the long run, every program becomes rococco, and then rubble.
-- Alan Perlis

Behind every great computer sits a skinny little geek.

The algorithm for finding the longest path in a graph is NP-complete.
For you systems people, that means it's *real slow*.
-- Bart Miller

You can now buy more gates with less specifications than at any other time
in history.
-- Kenneth Parker

“Pascal is Pascal is Pascal is dog meat.”
-- M. Devine and P. Larson, Computer Science 340

A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems
have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects,
those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are
the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers. Consider Unix,
APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them
with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS.
-- Fred Brooks

About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt
ax. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.
-- Edsger Dijkstra

The difference between art and science is that science is what we
understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else.
-- Donald Knuth, "Discover"

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual
way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of
complaining.
-- Jeff Raskin