Ellen Ullman Quotes

• We build our computer (systems) the way we build our cities: over time, without a plan, on top of ruins

  Ellen Ullman

  Cities, Way, Ruins

  19 Copy quote

• To be a programmer is to develop a carefully managed relationship with error. There's no getting around it. You either make your accomodations with failure, or the work will become intolerable.

  Ellen Ullman

  Errors, Programmers

  "The myth of order" by Ellen Ullman, www.wired.com. April 1, 1999.

  15 Copy quote

• The programmer, who needs clarity, who must talk all day to a machine that demands declarations, hunkers down into a low-grade annoyance. It is here that the stereotype of the programmer, sitting in a dim room, growling from behind Coke cans, has its origins. The disorder of the desk, the floor; the yellow Post-It notes everywhere; the whiteboards covered with scrawl: all this is the outward manifestation of the messiness of human thought. The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer.

  Ellen Ullman

  Yellow, Needs, Machines

  13 Copy quote

• The corollary of constant change is ignorance. This is not often talked about: we computer experts barely know what we're doing. We're good at fussing and figuring out. We function well in a sea of unknowns. Our experience has only prepared us to deal with confusion. A programmer who denies this is probably lying, or else is densely unaware of himself.

  Ellen Ullman

  Lying, Ignorance, Sea

  Ellen Ullman (2012). “Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents”, p.110, Macmillan

  14 Copy quote

• Software engineering is not about right and wrong but only better and worse

  Ellen Ullman

  Engineering, Software, Software Engineering

  6 Copy quote

• The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer.

  Ellen Ullman

  Program, Messiness, Programmers

  Ellen Ullman (2012). “Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents”, p.24, Pushkin Press

  56 Copy quote

• But you can't stop knowing something, can you?

  Ellen Ullman

  Knowing, Knowing Something

  Ellen Ullman (2012). “By Blood”, p.104, Pushkin Press

  6 Copy quote

• I've always written. I'm from an older generation of programmers [who] did not come out of engineering. [A]ll sorts of people were drawn in from the social sciences and humanities.

  Ellen Ullman

  Engineering, People, Humanity

  6 Copy quote

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