186 hits
Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.-- Bill Gates
Don't you talk to me about progress. Progress just means bad things happen faster.-- Terry Pratchett
The problem with reality is the lack of background music.
Progress, n: The process through which the Internet has evolved from smart people in front of dumb terminals to dumb people in front of smart terminals.
"Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much."
The law should make men free. The problem is making the law free.
The sooner you start to code, the longer the program will take.-- Roy Carlson
Dustin Pons, an American high-school student who attended a Soviet school for three weeks, as quoted in the New York Times: "American teenagers are more socially advanced. For instance, in their free time Soviets would rather read a book or walk in the park or play the piano. American teenagers would probably go out and watch TV, go to a movie, or something more actively inclined." ("The Progressive")
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."-- Thomas Jefferson
Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.-- Ogden Nash
2, 3, 3, 37 - the prime factorization of the beast.
AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18)
You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid.
The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.
Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.-- Oscar Wilde
"I am not part of the problem; I am a Republican."-- Dan Quayle
You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you are making progress.-- Malcolm X
"The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem."-- Theodore Rubin
You can't make a program without breaking some egos.
More to be feared than ignorance is the pretense of knowledge.
Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions. It's the only way to make progress.-- Havelock Vetinari
Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.-- Goethe
"The Prophets teach us patience."
-- Vedek Bareil
"It appears they also teach you politics."-- Sisko (Star Trek: DS9)
"The problem with post-modernism is that you like it more if you're innumerate or illiterate; both is best."-- Graydon
VB is very useful for allowing non programmers to prove they cant program.-- Druck
"Microsoft is not the problem. Microsoft is the symptom."-- Eric S. Raymond
He was just... well, like a lot of madmen. Somewhat accurate view of the problem, really insane view of the solution. (Kid Radd)
Lecture, n: Where the notes of the professor become the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either one.
Weinberg's Second Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
"We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles."-- Mark Twain
The Feynman Problem Solving Algorithm:
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.
The principle difference between a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives.
Remember, "y'all" is singular. "All y'all" is plural. "All y'all's" is plural possessive.
I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living.-- Lin Yutang
"The proverb warns that 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should if it prevents you from feeding yourself."-- Thomas Szasz
Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies:
As a USENET discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet renounce controversy are people who want crops without ploughing the ground.-- Frederick Douglass
Aftermath, n: The period following algebra.
The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.-- Chinese Proverb
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.-- George Bernard Shaw
Be the person you needed when you were younger.
Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
If god meant for us to program, he's a sadist.-- Rob Earhart
Half of the people in the world are below average.
Feature, n: A surprising property of a program. Occasionally documented. To call a property a feature sometimes means the author did not consider that case, and the program makes an unexpected, though not necessarily wrong response. See BUG. ``That's not a bug, it's a feature!'' A bug can be changed to a feature by documenting it.
"It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution."-- Oscar Wilde
"In corporate religions as in others, the heretic must be cast out not because of the probability that he is wrong but because of the possibility that he is right."-- Antony Jay
Innovation is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure.-- Albert Einstein
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language.-- Larry Wall
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.-- Harry S. Truman
And the pickles frolicked with the waffles, joyously.
If you put a million monkeys at a million keyboards, one of them will eventually write a Java program.
The rest of them will write Perl programs.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.-- Steven Wright
One of the problems with learning that many teachers fail to see is that until you really understand something, any argument made out of that understanding context tends to be pretty useless.
"Fast, fat computers breed slow, lazy programmers."-- Robert Hummel
There's a common component of scientific thought which says that a) if you're not a convicted Scientist then you can't get involved in discussions about Science and b) Science is all about Progress and means that things will always get better if Scientists are in Control.-- Neil Lewis
All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.-- Noam Chomsky
Only the good die young. Note the average age in Congress.
"I'm not mad at the world... just at all the people in it."
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
"What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty teenager asked her mother.
"Encouragement, dear..." she replied.
Answer the phone naked. Callers will hear it in your voice.
Don't you think that with the proper amount of manpower, pliers, ropes, belts and duct tape, you actually COULD lead a horse to water AND make it drink?-- Andy Overman
The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.-- Elizabeth Taylor
Murphy's Eleventh Law of Computing:
A computer program will follow your orders, but rarely your intentions.
Lunatic Asylum, n: The place where optimism most flourishes.
Vizzini: Inconceivable.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. (The Princess Bride)
Nerb, n: a noun used as a verb. For example: ''They didn't language the proclamation very well''. nerb, nerbing, nerbed v. the act of using nouns as verbs in a sentence.-- Rich Hill
All animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.-- Samuel Butler
In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.-- Oscar Wilde
That's what friendship means: sharing the prejudice of experience.-- Charles Bukowski
"Mom and dad say I should make my life an example of the principles I believe in. But every time I do, they tell me to stop it." (Calvin & Hobbes)
I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.
The problem isn't that the victim can't fight, the problem is that they have to. Saying that self-defense classes are the answer to gay bashers is like saying that it would be good if the government stopped prosecuting rape cases and used the money saved to hand out free mace.-- Richard Caley
"You just realize you're not on Happy Days. It's the real world; You need to ignore what you are programmed by sitcoms to think your life should be."-- Trent Reznor
The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations.-- David Friedman
Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he would spend two years campaigning and organizing for it should not be trusted with the office.
"Well, to be fair I did have a couple of gadgets he probably didn't, like a teaspoon and an open mind."-- The Doctor
Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is the presence of a system for resolving conflicts before war becomes necessary. War never creates peace.
Real Programmers never work from 9 to 5. If any real programmer is around at 9 a.m., it's because they were up all night.-- Some computer geek
"The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs."-- Joseph Weizenbaum
"The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are."-- Mark Twain
javalin: Unwieldy spear with poor flight characteristics and excessive weight. Due to its poor ballistics, it is usually used to stab a programming project through the heart until dead.-- Charles Shannon Hendrix
"We are at times too ready to believe that the present is the only possible state of things."-- Marcel Proust
Never wrestle with a pig. You'll both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
The ballast of factual information, so far from being just about to sink us, is growing daily less. The factual burden of a science varies inversely with its degree of maturity. As a science advances, particular facts are comprehended within, and therefore in a sense annihilated by, general statements of steadily increasing explanatory power and compass--whereupon the facts need no longer be known explicitly, that is, spelled out and kept in mind. In all sciences we are being progressively relieved of the burden of singular instances, the tyranny of the particular. We need no longer record the fall of every apple.-- Peter Medawar ("Pluto's Republic")
"We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists ... in the loved one, perfection."-- Sidney Poitier
Brought to you by the people who made "out of context" a household word.
Government of the people
By a corrupt subset of the people
For the people who can afford the corrupt subset of the people.
-- Chris Newport
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."-- James D. Nicoll
"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."-- G. K. Chesterton
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
The primary difference between a man and a woman is that a man gets his self-esteem when a woman says "yes" and a woman gets hers when she says "no". (Amy's Orgasm)
Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are software.-- Richard P. Brennan
"The Schizophrenic: An Unauthorized Autobiography"
BASIC, n.:
A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in that those who have it will not admit it in polite company.
If the pen is mightier than the sword, what happens when you run out of ink?
"The Ten Commandments contain 297 words. The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address contains 266 words. A recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words." (Atlanta Journal)
In America you can go on the air and kid the politicians, and the politicians can go on the air and kid the people.-- Groucho Marx
"If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standards of nonconformity."
"Don't be afraid to go after what you want to do, and what you want to be. But don't be afraid to be willing to pay the price."-- Lane Frost
"The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it."-- P. B. Medawar
"[Men, particularly in the British press] come in asking me why I'm so agressive and why I hate them, and, and, what they don't understand with this record is that it's about incredible passion and incredible desire and incredible need and then, love. It's all gotta be in there if you're being fair about it."-- Tori Amos
If it wasn't for the optimist the pessimist would never know how happy he isn't.
"The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream: it is a most depressing and humiliating reality."-- Oscar Wilde
People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the future.
"County library? Reference desk, please. Hello? Yes, I need a word definition. Well, that's the problem. I don't know how to spell it and I'm not allowed to say it. Could you just rattle off all the swear words you know and I'll stop you when...Hello??" (Calvin & Hobbes)
"I'd like to meet the person who invented sex and see what they're working on now."
My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot.
-Ashleigh Brilliant
If the pen is mightier than the sword then how can actions speak louder than words?
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a man and a dog."-- Mark Twain
[Perl] isn't a programming language, it's a thousand special case rules flying in close formation.-- Peter da Silva
"The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action."-- Frank Herbert
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."-- Theodore Roosevelt
Study the past, if you would divine the future.-- Confucius
"Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion."-- Scott Adams
The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.-- Mark Twain
Is not that the nature of men and women--that the pleasure is in the learning of each other?
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.-- Thomas Jefferson
It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.-- Edsger Dijkstra
Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Stand and fight, you misbegotten spawn of the perverse breeding between a pixie and a squirrel!
Arthur C. Clarke's Law :
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
The biblical concepts of sin and salvation are an integral part of Christian doctrine. Christianity first creates a problem (sin) and then offers a "solution" (salvation). This is not unlike the protection racket; you either buy "protection"--or else!"-- Domald Morgan
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
In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead."
"The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good."-- Robert Graves
America is like a melting pot. The people at the bottom get burned, and the scum floats to the top.
"The worst thing about censorship is [deleted by censorship bereau]."
There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses.-- Bjarne Stroustrup
In a cemetery:
"Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves."
"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."-- Mark Twain
The Pet Principle:
No matter which side of the door your dog or cat is on, it is the wrong side.
"In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be indented six feet downward and covered with dirt."-- Blair P. Houghton
Given the pace of technology, I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside. (Calvin & Hobbes)
The business of the mind is first and foremost the pure joy of knowing and comprehending, the pure joy of consciousness.-- Anais Nin
"All the people stared as if we were both quite insane."-- The Hollies
"Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month."-- Wernher von Braun
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.-- Rich Cook
In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.-- Tom Szasz
Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a Pulitzer prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a lightbulb-assassin to break the bulb in the first place.
An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.-- Don Marquis
"We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person, perfectly."
The UNIX system has a command, 'nice', which allows a user to voluntarily reduce the priority of his process, in order to be nice to other users. Nobody ever uses it.-- Andy Tanenbaum
"Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all, because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent."
There are three sorts of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.-- Oscar Wilde
"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards."-- Anatole France
Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved; the pig was committed.
"Ah," said the president [Reagan] with great lucidity, "It's true we shipped weapons to Iran, but they were defensive weapons."
If the man had a brain, he'd play with it.-- Molly Ivins
"Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely-read man never quotes accurately for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely."-- Hesketh Pearson
The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.-- George Bernard Shaw
"The trouble with us in America isn't that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy."-- Louis Kronenberger
"All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway."-- Harry S. Truman
"To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves."-- Claude Adrien Helvetius
Grammar is not a vice (though excessive picking at it can be). And nonstandard words/grammar can be used to good effect--but no one can do that without knowing how they're deviating.-- Randy Clark
I love stress because it's a whole lot better than depression.-- Drew Olbrich
"The degree of normality in a database is inversely proportional to that of its DBA"
...postmodernity, once the plaything of smarty-pants French guys, in truth belongs to the engagingly stupid. (Newsweek)
"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it."
Occam's eraser: The philosophical principle that even the simplest solution is bound to have something wrong with it.
"When the people fear their government there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."-- Thomas Jefferson
"The first 80% of software development is the easy part. The hard part is the next 80%"
"The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason."-- Bertrand Russell
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while Nature cures the disease.-- Voltaire
"The essence of intelligence is skill in extracting meaning from everyday experience."
Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.-- Samuel Johnson