Philip Greenspun Quotes

• The devil is real. He lives inside C programs.

  Philip Greenspun

  Real, Devil, Program

  Philip Greenspun (1999). “Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing”, p.202, Morgan Kaufmann

  5 Copy quote

• SQL, Lisp, and Haskell are the only programming languages that I've seen where one spends more time thinking than typing.

  Philip Greenspun

  Thinking, Language, Haskell

  "How long is the average Internet discussion forum posting?". Philip Greenspun's Weblog, blogs.harvard.edu. March 7, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

• Everything that I've learned about computers at MIT I have boiled down into three principles: Unix: You think it won't work, but if you find the right wizard, they can make it work. Macintosh: You think it will work, but it won't. PC/Windows: You think it won't work, and it won't.

  Philip Greenspun

  Thinking, Principles, Three

  Philip Greenspun (1999). “Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing”, p.202, Morgan Kaufmann

  7 Copy quote

• Frame is a good enough piece of software that there are actually rewards to taking an intelligent and formal approach to your problem. But if you want to be stupid, you can think of Frame as a version of Microsoft Word with most of the bugs taken out.

  Philip Greenspun

  Stupid, Taken, Thinking

  6 Copy quote

• Although the Buddhists will tell you that desire is the root of suffering, my personal experience leads me to point the finger at system administration.

  Philip Greenspun

  Buddhist, Roots, Suffering

  5 Copy quote

• Most people who are rich chose their parents wisely.

  Philip Greenspun

  People, Parent, Rich

  4 Copy quote

• If I'd had more time or been a better writer, I would have tried to put the same ideas and experiences into a novel. But I didn't so I slapped it up on the Web.

  Philip Greenspun

  Ideas, More Time, Novel

  Slashdot interview, tech.slashdot.org. April 27, 2000.

  8 Copy quote

• When you choose a language, youre also choosing a community. The programmers youll be able to hire to work on a Java project wont be as smart as the ones you could get to work on a project written in Python. And the quality of your hackers probably matters more than the language you choose. Though, frankly, the fact that good hackers prefer Python to Java should tell you something about the relative merits of those languages.

  Philip Greenspun

  Smart, Python, Community

  6 Copy quote

• Remember that in 1993 a company with a bad Web site needed an engineer. Today, a company with a bad Web site needs a psychiatrist.

  Philip Greenspun

  Needs, Today, Remember

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• Start by putting yourself in your users' shoes. Why are they coming to your site? If you look at most Web sites, you'd presume that the answer is "User is extremely bored and wishes to stare at a blank screen for several minutes while a flashing icon loads, then stare at the flashing icon for a few more minutes."

  Philip Greenspun

  Shoes, Icons, Bored

  5 Copy quote

• I don't myself believe in astrology. However, I think that's because I'm a Libra and Libras are always skeptical.

  Philip Greenspun

  Believe, Thinking, Astrology

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• Progress in computer science is made with the distribution of revolutionary software systems and the publication of revolutionary books. We don't need a fancy information system to alert us to these grand events; they will hit us in the face. Another good excuse for ignoring the literature is that, since everyone has strong beliefs about fundamentals but can't support those beliefs rationally or consistently convince non-believers, computer science is actually a religion.

  Philip Greenspun

  Strong, Book, Support

  9 Copy quote

• We worried about competitors, but it was an unreasonable fear. As a friend once pointed out, most gunshot wounds are self-inflicted.

  Philip Greenspun

  Self, Worried, Gunshots

  8 Copy quote

• Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming: any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.

  Philip Greenspun

  Half, Bugs, Common

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• Like most people in Academia, my vision of the future is the same as the average industry person's vision of five years ago.

  Philip Greenspun

  Average, Years, Visions Of The Future

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• The book the Ziff folks sent me as an example of their art was 'Late Night VRML 2.0 with Java,' 700 pages + CD-ROM, published February 1997. I was personally acquainted with more movie stars than people who might conceivably have wanted to buy this book or any book like it.

  Philip Greenspun

  Art, Stars, Book

  8 Copy quote

• We're not a vocational school. If someone wants to get a high-paying job, I would hope that there are easier ways to do it than working through a formal computer science curriculum.

  Philip Greenspun

  Jobs, School, Want

  "Philip Greenspun Answers". Slashdot Interview, tech.slashdot.org. April 27, 2000.

  8 Copy quote

• Even the lamest page can be saved by collaboration.

  Philip Greenspun

  Collaboration, Pages, Saved

  "Interactive Web sites to thrive" by Nancy Weil, www.cnn.com. February 9, 2000.

  7 Copy quote

• Even within traditional universities there has always been debate about whether it wouldn't be better to focus on only one course at a time.

  Philip Greenspun

  Focus, Debate, University

  Slashdot interview, tech.slashdot.org. April 27, 2000.

  4 Copy quote

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