Quotes about computers and software and other things
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Collected by Steen Hansen Hviid, Columbus, Ohio, USA

Unix was not designed to stop people from doing stupid things,
because that would also stop them from doing clever things.
–Doug Gwyn

Walking on water and developing software from a specification
are easy if both are frozen.
— Edward V. Berard, Life-Cycle Approaches

True research is like fumbling in the dark for the right switches.
Once youve turned the light on everyone can see……….
– unknown

An idiot with a computer is a faster, better idiot
– Rich Julius

The C Programming Language – A language which combines the
flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language.

Pascal – A programming language named after a man who would
turn over in his grave if he knew about it.

I havent lost my mind, I have it backed up on tape somewhere.

CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh!!

PROGRAM – n. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn
ones input into error messages. v. tr.- To engage in a pastime
similar to banging ones head against a wall, but with fewer
opportunities for reward.

On the Internet, nobody knows youre a dog.
– cartoon in the New Yorker

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it
correct, not tried it.
Donald Knuth

Beware of programmers with screwdrivers.

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it.

PCMCIA – People Cant Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms

Windows, another fine product from the folks who gave us EDLIN.

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

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it
harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.
— Bjarne Stroustrup

Ive never met a human being who would want to read 17,000
pages of documentation, and if there was, Id kill him to get him out
of the gene pool.
— Joseph Costello, President of Cadence

The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to
constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every
appearance, the variable pi can be given that value with a DATA statement
and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also
simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.
— FORTRAN manual for Xerox computers

Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.

The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should,
therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
— E. W. Dijkstra

It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to
students that [sic] have had prior exposure to BASIC; as potential
programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
— Dijkstra

Usenet is like Tetris for people who still remember how to read.
— Joshua Heller

The Internet is mightier than the pen.

I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strained
it to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and
low-mass stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born
relatively cold. I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the
crust to be absent — not because I wanted to know the answer, but because
I had developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular
case. Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsars
temperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error.
I chased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the
program to the point where it would not run at all.
— George Greenstein,
Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black Holes and the Fate of Stars

A system admins life is a sorry one. The only advantage he has
over Emergency Room doctors is that malpractice suits are rare. On
the other hand, ER doctors never have to deal with patients installing
new versions of their own innards!
— Michael OBrien