Computer Science Quotes - Page 4

• Computer science is one of the worst things that ever happened to either computers or to science.

  Neil Gershenfeld

  Technology, Computer, Worst

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• I decry the current tendency to seek patents on algorithms. There are better ways to earn a living than to prevent other people from making use of one's contributions to computer science.

  Donald Knuth

  People, Patents, Use

  "The Art of Computer Programming: Volume 3: Sorting and Searching". Book by Donald E. Knuth, 1973.

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• Any one who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.

  John von Neumann

  Witty, Powerful, Humorous

  "Various techniques used in connection with random digits" by John von Neumann in "Monte Carlo Method" edited by A.S. Householder, G.E. Forsythe and H.H. Germond, 1951.

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• What is the central core of the subject [computer science]? What is it that distinguishes it from the separate subjects with which it is related? What is the linking thread which gathers these disparate branches into a single discipline. My answer to these questions is simple -it is the art of programming a computer. It is the art of designing efficient and elegant methods of getting a computer to solve problems, theoretical or practical, small or large, simple or complex. It is the art of translating this design into an effective and accurate computer program.

  Tony Hoare

  Art, Learning, Simple

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• Computer science only indicates the retrospective omnipotence of our technologies. In other words, an infinite capacity to process data (but only data -- i.e. the already given) and in no sense a new vision. With that science, we are entering an era of exhaustivity, which is also an era of exhaustion.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Technology, Data, Omnipotence

  Jean Baudrillard (1990). “Cool memories”, Verso

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• The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating systems.

  Bill Gates

  Success, Leadership, Work

  Interview with Suzanne Lammers, programmersatwork.wordpress.com. 1986.

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• I think computer science, by and large, is still stuck in the Modern age.

  Larry Wall

  Science, Thinking, Age

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• Perhaps the central problem we face in all of computer science is how we are to get to the situation where we build on top of the work of others rather than redoing so much of it in a trivially different way.

  Richard Hamming

  Hard Work, Science, Differences

  "Turing Award lecture". Journal of the ACM 16 (1), p. 7, January, 1969.

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• It is hardly surprising that children should enthusiastically start their education at an early age with the Absolute Knowledge of computer science; while they are unable to read, for reading demands making judgments at every line. Conversation is almost dead, and soon so too will be those who knew how to speak.

  Guy Debord

  Children, Reading, Age

  Guy Debord (1998). “Comments on the Society of the Spectacle”, p.29, Verso

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• Even when I was studying mathematics, physics, and computer science, it always seemed that the problem of consciousness was about the most interesting problem out there for science to come to grips with.

  David Chalmers

  Interesting, Study, Computer

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• If we suppose that many natural phenomena are in effect computations, the study of computer science can tell us about the kinds of natural phenomena that can occur.

  Rudy Rucker

  Study, Kind, Computer

  "Adventures In Gnarly Computation". www.rudyrucker.com. October 2005.

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• The burgeoning field of computer science has shifted our view of the physical world from that of a collection of interacting material particles to one of a seething network of information. In this way of looking at nature, the laws of physics are a form of software, or algorithm, while the material world-the hardware-plays the role of a gigantic computer.

  Paul Davies

  Nature, Science, Views

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• The inside of a computer is as dumb as hell but it goes like mad!

  Richard P. Feynman

  Learning, Technology, Mad

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• Post-Modernism was a reaction against Modernism. It came quite early to music and literature, and a little later to architecture. And I think it's still coming to computer science.

  Larry Wall

  Science, Thinking, Literature

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• 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.

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• I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun.

  Alan Perlis

  Fun, Learning, Successful

  "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". Textbook by Gerald Jay Sussman and Hal Abelson, 2nd edition, 1996.

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• Premature optimization is the root of all evil.

  Donald Knuth

  Science, Roots, Evil

  Donald Ervin Knuth (1986). “TEX: The Program”, Addison-Wesley Professional

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• Too few people in computer science are aware of some of the informational challenges in biology and their implications for the world. We can store an incredible amount of data very cheaply.

  Sergey Brin

  Technology, Data, People

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• But quality of work can be expected only through personal satisfaction, dedication and enjoyment. In our profession, precision and perfection are not a dispensable luxury, but a simple necessity.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Work, Simple, Dedication

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• Now, the reason that we think computer science is about computers is pretty much the same reason that the Egyptians thought geometry was about surveying instruments. And that is, when some field is just getting started and you don't really understand it very well, it's very easy to confuse the essence of what you're doing with the tools that you use.

  Hal Abelson

  Thinking, Essence, Tools

  "Overview and Introduction to Lisp". Introduction of video of lectures on the "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", ocw.mit.edu. 1986.

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• Both women and computer science are the losers when a geeky stereotype serves as an unnecessary gatekeeper to the profession.

  Cordelia Fine

  Loser, Computer, Unnecessary

  Cordelia Fine (2005). “Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences”, p.46, Icon Books Ltd

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• The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

  Isaac Asimov

  Inspirational, Funny, Motivational

  "Betting On a Bass That Belts Them Out; Singing Fish Becomes Season’s Unlikely Hit" by Darragh Johnson, The Washington Post, July 30, 2000.

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• A number of people who are interested in computers in this lifetime programmed computers in Atlantis.

  Frederick Lenz

  Science, Numbers, People

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• On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

  Charles Babbage

  Ideas, Two, Confusion

  Passages from the Life of a Philosopher ch. 5 (1864) See Countess of Lovelace 1; Modern Proverbs 35

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• I remember that mathematicians were telling me in the 1960s that they would recognize computer science as a mature discipline when it had 1,000 deep algorithms. I think we've probably reached 500.

  Donald Knuth

  Thinking, Discipline, Algorithms

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