One has to be able to count if only so that at fifty one doesn't marry a girl of twenty. read more

One has to be able to count if only so that at fifty one doesn't marry a girl of twenty. - The Zykovs, 1914.

All science is either physics or stamp collecting. -E. Rutherford.

All science is either physics or stamp collecting. -E. Rutherford.

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.

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.

Live TV died in the late 1950s, electronic bulletin boards came along in the mid-1980s, meaning there was about a read more

Live TV died in the late 1950s, electronic bulletin boards came along in the mid-1980s, meaning there was about a 25-year gap when it was difficult to put your foot in your mouth and have people all across the country know about it.

I'd wipe the machines off the face of the earth again, and end the industrial epoch absolutely, like a black read more

I'd wipe the machines off the face of the earth again, and end the industrial epoch absolutely, like a black mistake.

The science of today is the technology of tomorrow.

The science of today is the technology of tomorrow.

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.

The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it.

The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it.