Computer Quotations
Computers
From Wikiquote (Redirected from Computer)A computer is a machine for manipulating data according to a list of instructions. Computers take many forms, from early room-sized complexes to modern personal computers (PCs) and personal digital assistants (PDAs) to tiny embedded systems that add sophisticated capabilities to other devices like toys and appliances.
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- The Analytical Engine has no pretentions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.
- Ada Lovelace, An Account of the Analytical Engine, 1842, reprinted in Faster than Thought, ed. B.V. Bowden (Pitman, 1953), cited in Andrew Hodges Alan Turing: The Enigma of Intelligence (Unwin 1985) (probably the first known instance of "Computers can only do what they are programmed to do")
- Dare to be gorgeous and unique. But don't ever be cryptic or otherwise unfathomable. Make it unforgettably great.
- Robert J. Mical, Amiga Intuition Reference Manual, 1986, (ISBN 0201110768), p. 231
- Mr. McKitrick, after careful consideration I have come to the conclusion that your defense system sucks.
- General Beringer (Barry Corbin) in WarGames, unidentified scene
- Trust The Computer. The Computer is your friend.
- "Computer's Credo", Paranoia
- "So computers are tools of the devil?" thought Newt. He had no problem believing it. Computers had to be the tools of somebody, and all he knew for certain was that it definitely wasn't him.
- Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, chapter: Saturday, page 313 (Corgi Books, 1991, ISBN 0-552-13703-0)
- Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
- Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks 3rd Ed., 1996, Chapter 2 page 83
- The simple fact is that without supporting directives or a mechanism for feedback, security is defined differently by each person and verified by no one. There is no metric for compliance with a "culture", and a "culture of security" is overridden by a culture of "get the job done" every time. If there are rules, write them down. If technology is put in place to implement or monitor the rules, write that down too. If people break the rules, follow up. If the rules prevent legitimate business from getting done, change them. It's that simple.
- Espenschied, Jon (14 August 2007). "Ten claims that scare security pros". Computerworld (Infoworld.com). Retrieved on 2007-08-14.
- It used to be said of a man who had suffered a catastrophic setback in his line of work that he had been handed his head on a platter. We are being handed our heads with tweezers now.
- Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake (1997), Ch. 9, p. 38. ISBN 0-425-16434-9
- I have bought this wonderful machine- a computer. Now I am rather an authority on gods, so I identified the machine- it seems to me to be an Old Testament god with a lot of rules and no mercy.
- Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth (1988), I, p.24 ISBN 0-385-41886-8
- On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?"...I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
- Babbage, Charles (1864). Passages from the life of a philosopher. Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green. p. 67. ISBN 1851960406.
- If you don't know anything about computers, just remember that they are machines that do exactly what you tell them but often surprise you in the result.
- Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (1986), III, p.50 ISBN 0-393-31570-3
- Today’s computers are not even close to a 4-year-old human in their ability to see, talk, move, or use common sense. One reason, of course, is sheer computing power. It has been estimated that the information processing capacity of even the most powerful supercomputer is equal to the nervous system of a snail—a tiny fraction of the power available to the supercomputer inside [our] skull.
- Steven Pinker, How Unique You Are!; Is There a Creator Who Cares About You?, published by Jehovah's Witnesses.
Software
- Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long?
- "Epigrams in Programming", SIGPLAN, Association for Computing Machinery, September 1982
- 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, essay "No Silver Bullet", 1987
- A refund for defective software might be nice, except it would bankrupt the entire software industry in the first year.
- Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, 2003, Introduction, page 14
- Interviewer: Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer? Bill Gates: No. the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating system. You got to be willing to read other people's code, then write your own, then have other people review your code. You've got to want to be in this incredible feedback loop where you get the world-class people to tell you what you're doing wrong.
- "Programmers at Work: Interviews With 19 Programmers Who Shaped the Computer Industry", Tempus, by Susan Lammers (Editor)
Computer games
- The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games.
Programming
- The primary duty of an exception handler is to get the error out of the lap of the programmer and into the surprised face of the user.
- Verity Stob (11 January 2006). "Catch as catch can: A light-hearted look at exception handling". The Register. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
Unix
- Your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good excuse for some of the brain-damages of Minix.
- Linus Torvalds to Tanenbaum (author of Minix) in the famous Usenet flame-war thread
- Will journalling become prevalent in the Unix world at large? Probably not. After all, it's nonstandard.
- The UNIX Hater's Handbook, 1994, ISBN 1568842031, chapter 13, page 267
- Linux users think Abraham was ordered to sacrifice Linus as a burnt offering, GNU users think Abraham was ordered to sacrifice Stallman as a burnt offering. Linux users believe in the holy trinity of GNU/Linux/NvidiaBlobs, BSD users believe in the one and only UNIX. Linux users are fine with Tux toys and stickers, BSD users believe in no graven images. Linux users are subdivided into those that argue about interpretations of freedom and whether the establishment is corrupt, BSD users are subdivided according to which BSD is the true descendant of UNIX(pbuh).
- kestasjk, Slashdot User - Slashdot Article
- UNIX is user-friendly, it just chooses its friends.
- Andreas Bogk, Chaosradio 40
Unsourced
This section does not cite its references or sources. You can help Wikiquote by introducing appropriate citations.- If you think you can solve your security problems, then you don’t understand the problems and you don’t understand the technology.
- The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.
- Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music.
- Marcus Brigstocke (falsely attributed to Kristian Wilson, Nintendo Inc)
- See http://www.pacmanhattan.com/ though[not in citation given]
- Quantum mechanic Seth Lloyd says the universe is one giant, hackable computer. Let's hope it's not running Windows.
- Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.
- Andy Rooney
- People make mistakes, but to get a mess you'll need a computer.
- The computer is the game.
- Tom Christiansen
- Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network.
- Tim Berners-Lee (in Technology Review, July 1996)
- [Software are among the] things which can be copied infinitely over and over again, without any further costs.
- Eben Moglen, 2006
- A world full of computers which you can't understand, can't fix and can't use [because it is controlled by inaccessible proprietorial software] is a world controlled by machines.
- Eben Moglen, 2006
- .HELP SEX: This system is a computer and as such is not able to help with enquiries of this nature. For details on reproduction, see the Xerox documentation.
- Famous Help text from Essex Dec 10
- Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
- Popular Mechanics (1949)
- Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
- Don't trust a computer you can't throw out a window.
- A computer is like air conditioning; it becomes useless when you open Windows.
- "I'm not afraid of computers taking over the world. They're just sitting there. I can hit them with a two by four."
Misattributed
- I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
- Commonly attributed to Thomas J. Watson (1874–1956), general manager and chairman of IBM, but there is no evidence he ever said or wrote this. The earliest known citations occurred in the 1980s.[2]
See also
External links
Wikipedia has an article about: Computers- http://quotes.cat-v.org/programming Programming quotations (unsourced)
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