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Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable. As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way. If we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing a part of our lives?-- Alan Kay (``Computer Software'', Scientific American)
(A)bort (R)etry (T)oss computer across room?
Guru, n: A computer owner who can read the manual.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
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
Computer Science without FORTRAN and COBOL is like birthday cake without ketchup and mustard.
All New: The software is not compatible with any previous version.
The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.
On an American Airlines package of nuts: Instructions: Open package, eat nuts.
"The first 80% of software development is the easy part. The hard part is the next 80%"
Traditionally, emotional and social problems have been judged as the moral shortcomings of an individual. Someone suffering from a psychiatric illness or an addiction is rarely viewed as a person who has a disorder or who is taxed by overwhelming circumstances. Instead the affliction is becomes a metaphor for a host of evils; it serves a testimony of the individual's unworthiness, a cause for condemnation.-- Ellen L. Bassuk ("Scientific American", December 1991)
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
Computers save man a lot of guesswork, but then, so do bikini's.
"There is nothing wrong with the software that rm won't cure."-- Arnie Romo
"If houses were built the way software is built,
the first woodpecker would bring down civilization."
Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.-- Steve Wozniak
"That's the trouble with women these days. They act like men and want to be treated like women" (An American in Paris)
Murphy's Eleventh Law of Computing:
A computer program will follow your orders, but rarely your intentions.
98% of us Americans are hard-working people. It's the other 2% that give us a bad reputation. Then again, we did elect them.
No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.-- H. L. Mencken
What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?-- Marilyn Pittman
On-line, adj: The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a computer.
"The computer world is like a great big toy store. But all the toys are broken."-- Steve Witham
The American public knows what it wants, and deserves to get it good and hard.-- H. L. Mencken
Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer.
"Our American professors like their literature clear, cold, pure and very dead."-- Sinclair Lewis
"The main differences between a computer salesman and a used car salesman is that the used car salesman can probably drive and knows when he's lying."-- Peter da Silva
"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
Nobody's gonna believe that computers are intelligent until they start coming in late and lying about it.
We may begin to see reality differently simply because the computer ... provides a different angle on reality.-- Heinz Pagels
"I really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course - the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end."-- Douglas Adams
Bagdikian's Observation:
Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's 'St. Matthew Passion' on a ukelele.
"Fast, fat computers breed slow, lazy programmers."-- Robert Hummel
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress."-- Mark Twain
Well, there's a quantum computer that can factor [the number] 15, so those of you using 4-bit RSA should worry.-- Bruce Schneier
"Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman's truncheon over the anarchist's bomb.-- Spiro T. Agnew
"The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little."-- Porterfield
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.-- Edsger Dijkstra
The commercial availability of software to check spelling, grammar, and style does serve quite well as a form of stupidity tax.-- Amanda Walker
That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and Americans. A European says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with me?" An American says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?"-- Terry Pratchett (alt.fan.pratchett)
"In America--as elsewhere--free speech is confined to the dead."-- Mark Twain
Imaginative writers are valuable colleagues and their testimony is to be rated very highly because they draw on sources that we have not yet made accessible to science. The portrayal of the psychic life of human beings is, of course, the imaginative writer's most special demand. He has always been the forerunner of science and thus scientific psychology, too.-- Sigmund Freud
"We are the flaming, exploding, CGI-movie saturated MTV generation after all. If it isn't bright pink and green, naked, on fire and computer animated, I just yawn and walk away." (Someone on Slashdot)
Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor.-- Wernher von Braun
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")
He's come up with half of the algorithms used in the 20th century, but wouldn't actually recognize an actual computer if you dropped it on him.-- Jason Riek (about Dana Scott)
Artificial Intelligence: the art of making computers that behave like the ones in movies.-- Bill Bulko
"People can travel great distances on a computer, so why can't we travel that way emotionally?"-- Tori Amos
All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.-- Carl Sagan
Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.-- Fred Brooks
You can tell how far we have to go when FORTRAN is the language of supercomputers.-- Steven Feiner
"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila."-- Mitch Radcliffe
PROGRAM, n.: A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. v. tr.: To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward.
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
"Buying the right computer and getting it to work properly is no more complicated than building a nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a darkened room using only your teeth."-- Dave Barry
"America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damn well please."-- P.J. O'Rourke
I try to make computers say things like "You have 60 seconds to achieve safe distance".-- Terry Pratchett
In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.-- Adlai Stevenson
In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.-- Oscar Wilde