One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

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.

Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don't let anybody else use it, and get a new one every six months.

Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don't let anybody else use it, and get a new one every six months.

The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus read more

The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.

By the time (the Leaning Tower of Pisa) was 10% built, everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But read more

By the time (the Leaning Tower of Pisa) was 10% built, everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But the investment was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it cost a fortune to maintain and is still in danger of collapsing. There are no plans to replace it, since it was never needed in the first place. I expect every installation has its own pet software which is analogous to the above.

From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we read more

From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we just decided to go.

Spending an evening on the World Wide Web is much like sitting down to a dinner of Cheetos, two hours read more

Spending an evening on the World Wide Web is much like sitting down to a dinner of Cheetos, two hours later your fingers are yellow and you're no longer hungry, but you haven't been nourished.

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.

Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground read more

Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.