"Have you ever seen a computer crash?" he demanded.  "It's horrible.
All  over the floor!"
        -- R.A. MacAvoy, "Tea With the Black Dragon"
 
"Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams)
"365,365,365,365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365."  He [ten-year-
old Truman Henry Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his
pantaloons over the tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes
in their sockets, sometimes smiling and talking, and then seeming to
be in an agony, until, in not more than one minute, said he,
"133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,255!"
 
An electronic computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't
be as much fun to watch.
        -- James R. Newman, "The World of Mathematics"
 
"Okay," Bobby said, getting the hang of it, "then what's the matrix?
If she's a deck, and Danbala's a program, what's cyberspace?"
 
"The world," Lucas said.
        -- William Gibson, "Count Zero"
 
"Uncle Cosmo, why do they call this a word processor?"
"It's simple, Skyler.  You've seen what food processors do to food,
right?"
        -- MacNelley, "Shoe"
 
. . . then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise
anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear
and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded . . .
        -- Plato, "Phaedrus"
 
. . . when we recognize the battle against chaos, mess, and unmastered
 complexity as one of computing science's major~callings, we must admit
that 'Beauty is our Business'.
        -- Edsger W. Dijkstra
 
A decision must be made as to which operations shall be built in and
which are to be coded into the instructions. . . .  Ultimate choice
must depend upon the analysis by the designer of the character of the
works to be performed by the machine, the frequency of occurance of
operations, and the ease with which the non-built-in operations can be
compounded from those which are built in.
        -- J.W. Mauchly, "Preparation for Problems for EDVAC-type
                          Machines", 1947
 
A program is never less than 90% complete, and never more than 95%
complete.
        -- Terry Baker
 
A slower system is better than an incorrect one.
        -- Mark Diekhans
 
A technique is a trick that works.
        -- Gian-Carlo Rota
 
Ada is PL/I trying to be Smalltalk.
        -- Codoso diBlini
 
All programmers are optimists.  Perhaps this modern sorcery especially
attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers.
Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who
habitually focus on the end goal.  Perhaps it is merely that computers
are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists.
But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable:
"This time it will surely run," or "I just found~the last bug."
        -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., "The Mythical Man-Month"
 
And thou shalt make loops . . .
        -- Exodous 24:6
 
Anyone attempting to generate random numbers by deterministic means is,
of course, living in a state of sin.
        -- John von Neumann
 
As far as we were aware, we simply made up the language as we went along.
We did not regard language design as a difficult problem, merely a simple
prelude to the real problem: designing a compiler which could produce
efficient programs.
        -- John Backus
 
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 discovers debugging, 1949
 
As stated above, the host area of a disk is structured as a vector of
logical blocks.  From a performance viewpoint, however, it is more
appropriate to view the host area as a four dimensional hyper-cube, the
four dimensions being cylinder, group, track, and sector.
. . .
Referring to our hyper-cube analogy, the set of potentially accessible
blocks form a line parallel to the track axis.  This line moves parallel
to the sector axis, wrapping around when it reaches the edge of the hyper-
cube.
        -- "Basic Disk Functions Manual", UDA50 Programmers Doc Kit
 
Be warned that being an expert is more than understanding how a system
is supposed to work.  Expertise is gained by investigating why a system
doesn't work.
        -- Brian Redman
 
But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: for whatsoever is more
than these cometh of evil.
        -- Matthew 5:37  (basis for using binary number system in modern
                          computer coding theory)
 
C, n.:
A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like
assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else.
It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't.
        -- Ray Simard
 
Computer Science has some of the most colorful language of any field.  In
what other field can you walk into a sterile room, carefully controlled
at 68o F, and find viruses, Trojan horses, worms, bugs, bombs, crashes,
flames, twisted sex changers and fatal errors?
        -- Steve McConnell, "Code Complete: A Practical Handbook
                             of Software Construction"
 
Computers are to computing as instruments are to music.  Software is the
score, whose interpretation amplifies our reach and lifts our spirits.
Leonardo da Vinci called music "the shaping of the invisible", and his
phrase is even more apt as a description of software.
        -- Alan Kay, "Computer Software"
 

COMPUTING SCIENCE
The study of the use and sometimes construction of digital
computers. (Analogue computers are generally excluded.) It is a
fashionable, interesting, difficult, and perhaps useful
activity. Unfortunately, in spite of appearing to be a
mathematical or physical science, it has so far a pitiably small
body of generally accepted fundamental laws or principles which
are likely to remain valid even for the next 20 years, and
consists instead almost entirely of ephemeral `state of the art'
information. A more appropriate title at this stage of 
        -- Christopher Strachey, "The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought"
 
Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal -- if you don't use
your thumbs.
        -- Tom Lehrer
 
Data is a lot like humans:  It is born.  Matures.  Gets married to other
data, divorced.  Gets old.  One thing it doesn't do is die.  It has to be
killed.
        -- Arthur Miller
 
Data that is not systematically used will spoil.
        -- Jim Highsmith
 
Digital computers are themselves more complex than most things people
build: they have very large numbers of states.  This makes conceiving,
describing, and testing them hard.  Software systems have orders-of-
magnitude more states than computers do.
        -- Fred Brooks, Jr.
 
Everything has a boolean value, if you stand far enough away from it.
        -- Galena Alyson Canada
 
Excerpt from conversation between customer support person and customer
working for a well-known military-affiliated research lab:
   "You're not our only customer, you know."
   "But we're one of the few with tactical nuclear weapons."
 
Excuse me, Worker, I'll just be a nanosecond.
        -- a computer, from Firesign Theater's "I Think We're All Bozos
                                                On This Bus"
 
Five minutes later he was out of there.
 
About thirty seconds to do the job, and three minutes thirty to cover
his tracks.  He could have done anything he liked in the virtual
structure, more or less.  He could have transferred ownership of the
entire organization into his own name, but he doubted if that would have
gone unnoticed.  He didn't want it anyway.  It would have meant
responsibility, working late nights at the office, not to mention
massive and time-consuming fraud investigations and a fair amount of time
in jail.  He wanted something that nobody other than the computer would
notice: that was the bit that took thirty seconds.
 
The thing that took three minutes thirty was programming the computer not
to notice that it had noticed anything.
 
The other minute was spent discovering that the computer system already
had a mental block.  A big one.
        -- Douglas Adams, "Mostly Harmless"
 
FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms,
and grows in every computer.
        -- A.J. Perlis
 
FORTRAN is the language of Powerful Computers.
        -- Steven Feiner
 
He went away from the basement of Building 14 that day, and left this
note in his cubicle, on top of his computer terminal: "I'm going to a
commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a
season."
        -- Tracy Kidder, "The Soul of a New Machine"
 
I bet the human brain is a kludge.
        -- Marvin Minsky
 
I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC;
It plainly marks four my revue
Mistakes I cannot sea.
I've run this poem threw it,
I'm sure your pleased too no,
Its letter perfect in it's weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.
        -- Janet Minor, "Spellbound"
 
I programmed all night.
Through the window, on my screen,
The rising sun shone.
        -- "The Zen of Programming"
 
I programmed three days
And heard no human voices.
But the hard disk sang.
        -- "The Zen of Programming"
 
I read my e-mail.
The project has been cancelled.
Purging files, I weep.
        -- "The Zen of Programming"
 
I thought [computers] would be a universally applicable idea, like a
book is.  But I didn't think it would develop as fast as it did, 
because I didn't envision we'd be able to get as many parts on a chip
as we finally got.  The transistor came along unexpectedly.  It all
happened much faster than we expected.
        -- J. Presper Eckert, coinventor of ENIAC, speaking in 1991
 
I'd rather write programs to write programs than write programs.
        -- Jon Bentley, "Programming Pearls"
 
If it's there     and you can see it   - it's real.
If it's not there and you can see it   - it's virtual.
If it's there     and you can't see it - it's transparent.
If it's not there and you can't see it - you erased it!
        -- Old IBM VM Statement (Scott Hammer)
 
If software engineering managers cannot manage a change that they've
had 1,000 years to prepare for, how can we expect them to manage a
change that happens without notice?  In other words, if this change
causes a crisis in your organization, everything will cause a crisis
in your organization -- ~and often nothing will cause a crisis.
        -- Gerald Weinberg (on the approach of the year 2000)
 
If you sat a monkey down in front of a keyboard, the first thing typed
would be a UNIX command.
        -- Bill Lye
 
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
 
Information is news that makes a difference.  If it doesn't make a
difference, it isn't information.
        -- Claude Shannon
 
It took no computation to dance to the rock 'n roll station.
        -- Velvet Underground
 
Just machines to make big decisions,
Programmed by men for compassion and vision
        -- Donald Fagan
 
Karl's Programming Proverb 0x7:
When in doubt, print 'em out.
 
Measuring software productivity by lines of code is like measuring
progress on a plane by how much it weighs.
        -- Bill Gates
 
Modeling paged and segmented memories is tricky business.
        -- P.J. Denning
 
Must it be assummed that because we are [software] engineers beauty is
not our business, and that while we make our constructions robust and
durable we do not also strive to make them elegant?
        -- Bertrand Meyer, "Eiffel: The Language"
 
Of course the brain *is* a machine and a computer -- everything in
classical neurology is correct.  But, our mental process, which
constitute our being and life, are not just abstract and mechanical,
but personal as well -- and, as such, involve not just classifying
and categorising, but continual judging and feeling also.  If this
is missing, we become computer-like . . .
        -- Oliver Sacks, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat"
 
Oh, she was a hacker and he was one, too,
They had so much in common, you'd say.
They exchanged jokes and poems, and clever new hacks,
And prompts that were cute or risque.
He sent her a picture of his brother Sam,
She sent one from some past high school day,
And it might have gone on for the rest of their lives,
If they hadn't met in L.A.
"Your beard is an armpit," she said in disgust.
He answered, "Your armpit's a beard!"
And they chorused: "I think I could stand all the rest
If you were not so totally weird!"
        --Judith Schrier, "Face to Face After Six Months of
                           Electronic Mail"
 
On the subject of C program indentation:
In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be indented
six feet downward and covered with dirt.
        -- Blair P. Houghton
 
One idea that is stolen from human practice, an awfully good place to get
ideas, is that maybe the reason we have the illusion that large numbers
of things are computable is that we only notice the ones we have computed.
So what we may have is the illusion that most problems may be solved.
        -- Herbert A. Simon, "Perspectives on Computer Science"
 
panic: ifree: freeing free inodes...
        -- UNIX error message
 
Perhaps the best metaphor is the zoom lenses used on cameras.  You need
a zoom mind that can change focal length from wide angle to long distance
with, of course, a high degree of close-up macro capability (and equipped
with special filters for discerning intellectual traps).
        -- Joseph J. Carr, "The Art of Science: A Practical Guide to
                            Experiments, Observation, and Handling Data"
 
Programming can be fun, so can cryptography; however they should not be
combined.
        -- Kreitzberg and Shneiderman
 
Programming graphics in X is like finding sqrt(pi) using Roman numerals.
        -- Henry Spencer
 
R2D2, you know better than to trust a strange computer.
        -- C3PO, "Star Wars"
 
Rule of Thumb Number 26:  When in doubt, power cycle.
        -- Joel C. Corcoran
 
SHIFT TO THE LEFT!
SHIFT TO THE RIGHT!
POP UP!  PUSH DOWN!
BYTE, BYTE, BYTE!
        -- (Assembler Programmer's cheer)
 
Software engineering is not programming scaled up.
        -- George Pothering
 
Speak roughly to your little Mac,
   And boot it when it crashes;
It knows that one cannot relax
   Because the paging thrashes!
          Wow!  Wow!  Wow!
I speak severely to my Mac,
   And boot it when it crashes;
In spite of all my favorite hacks
   My work it always trashes!
           Wow!  Wow!  Wow!
 
That's impossible, even with a computer!
        -- Princess Leia, "Star Wars"
 
The C shell is flakier than a snowstorm.
        -- Guy Harris
 
The coming thing, Cowboy thinks.  Live forever in a bodily incarnation
of the eye-face, not limited to the speed of artificially enhanced
neurotransmitters but approaching the speed of light, extending the
limits of the interface, the universe.  Brain contained in a perfect
liquid-crystal analog.  Nerves like the strings of a steel guitar.
Heart a spinning turbopump.  The Steel Cowboy, his body a screaming
monochrome flicker, dispensing justice and righting wrongs.  Who was
that masked AI?  Dunno, pardner, but he left this silver casting of a
crystal circuit.
 
To Cowboy, it sounded pretty good.
        -- Walter Jon Williams, "Hardwired"
 
The First Commandment for Technicians:
Beware the lightning that lurketh in the undischarged capacitor, lest it
cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most untechnician-like manner.
 
The First Rule of Program Optimization:
   Don't do it.
The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!):
   Don't do it yet.
        -- Michael Jackson
 
The IBM Principle:
Machines should work.  People should think.
The Truth About the IBM Principle:
Machines don't often work, people don't often think.
 
The new electronic independence recreates the world in the image of a
global village.
        -- Marshall McLuhan
 
The Tao gave birth to machine language.
Machine language gave birth to the assembler.
The assembler gave birth to the compiler.
 
Now there are ten thousand languages.
 
Each language has its purpose, however humble.
Each language expresses the yin and yang of software.
Each language has its place within the Tao.
 
But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it.
        -- "The Tao of Programming"
 
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore,
be regarded as a criminal offense.
        -- E.W. Dijkstra
 
There are 9 results in there -- it looks like it's going to be tedious,
and indeed it is.
        -- Discrete Math class (and indeed it was . . .)
 
There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX.
We don't believe this to be a coincidence.
        -- Jeremy S. Anderson
 
There has been as great a proliferation of lawyers in the past 20 years
as there has been a proliferation of computers, and unlike computers,
lawyers do not get twice as intelligent and half as expensive every two
years.
        -- E. Burns, "S.F. Bay Guardian"
 
UNIX programmers are like witch doctors.  They think they have to be
covered in scars to show how powerful they are.
        -- Steven Strassmann
 
vi is [[13~^[[15~^[[15~^[[19~^[[18~^ a muk[^[[29~^[[34~^[[26~^[[32~^ch
better editor than this emacs.  I know I^[[14~'ll get flamed for this
but the truth has to be said. ^[[D^[[D^[[D^[[D^~     [[D^[^[[D^[[D^[[B^
        -- Jesper Lauridsen
 
We have to learn to manage information and its flow.  If we don't, it
will all end up in turbulence.
        -- Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
 
When I got out of school, I thought I was the best programmer in the
world.  I could write an unbeatable tic-tac-toe program, use five
different computer languages, and create 1000-line programs that
WORKED (really)!!.  Then I got~out into the Real World.  My first task
in the Real World was to read and understand a 200,000-line FORTRAN
program, then speed it up by a factor of two.  Any Real Programmer
will tell you that all the Structured Coding in the world won't help
you solve a problem like that -- it takes actual talent.
        -- "Real Programmers Don't Write Pascal"