thoughts on programming
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If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then
programming must be the process of putting them in.
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— Unknown
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If hackers ran the world, there'd be no war — lots of accidents, maybe.
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— Evan Clark
("hackers" — as in *programmers*, not "crackers", kiddo)
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Just bang the rocks together.
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— Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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. . . 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 . . .
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— Plato, Phaedrus
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Beta is only a state of mind.
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— Unknown
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The price one pays for pursuing any profession,
or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
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— James Baldwin
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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
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— Hunter S. Thompson
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All language is an abstraction of the real world. ...
A program is an abstraction of the programmer's thoughts
on how to interpret and manipulate the real world.
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— Kohanski, The Philosophical Programmer, pp. 186-187
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Neo-classical post-retropunks prefer explicit return statements
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— Chapman
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I realized today that the silver lining on the cloud of impersonal
automated mass-marketed cold lifeless services, like bank ATMs,
drive-thru restaurants, and internet shopping, is that they
completely eliminate any prejudicial bias such as race, gender,
religion, and funny hair.
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— The Ult with Funny Hair
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... the Internet may fairly be regarded as a never-ending
worldwide conversation. The Government may not, through the CDA,
interrupt that conversation. As the most participatory form of
mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest
protection from governmental intrusion.
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— United States Judge Dalzell
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Contrary to popular belief, Unix is user friendly.
It just happens to be very selective about who its friends are.
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— Kyle Hearn
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Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and Unix.
I do not think that this is a coincidence.
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— Unknown
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We spend most of our careers locating and fixing bugs.
Maurice Wilkes, director of the Cambridge EDSAC project,
[when the art of programming was just beginning]
recalls the exact moment in June 1949 when, "hesitating at the
angle of the stairs," he realized that "a good part of the
remainder of my life was going to be spent in finding
errors in my own programs."
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— Kohanski, The Philosophical Programmer, p. 160