Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something read more

Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.

Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back read more

Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in read more

We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like.

Sped up my XT; ran it on 220v! Works greO?_|.

Sped up my XT; ran it on 220v! Works greO?_|.

FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in read more

FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
PL/I --'the fatal disease'-- belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence.
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.

It's going to be a bummer if Mars turns out to be like us.

It's going to be a bummer if Mars turns out to be like us.

Guide to understanding a net.addict's day: Slow day: didn't have much to do, so spent three hours on usenet. Busy read more

Guide to understanding a net.addict's day: Slow day: didn't have much to do, so spent three hours on usenet. Busy day: managed to work in three hours of usenet. Bad day: barely squeezed in three hours of usenet.

The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour read more

The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers.