Computing Quotes

• There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.

  Ken Olsen

  Funny, Business, Stupid

  "The 10 Stupidest Things Ever Said By Tech's Smartest People" by Dylan Love, www.businessinsider.com. April 17, 2013.

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• The computer was born to solve problems that did not exist before.

  Bill Gates

  Computer, Problem, Born

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• The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers.

  Richard Hamming

  Learning, Math, Numbers

  "Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers". Book by Richard Hamming, 1962.

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• You have as much computing power in your iPhone as was available at the time of the Apollo missions. But what is it being used for? It’s being used to throw angry birds at pigs; it’s being used to send pictures of your cat to people halfway around the world; it’s being used to check in as the virtual mayor of a virtual nowhere while you’re riding a subway from the nineteenth century.

  Peter Thiel

  Cat, Iphone, Pigs

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• To me, thought-controlled computing is as simple and powerful as a paintbrush - one more tool to unlock and enliven the hidden worlds within us.

  Ariel Garten

  Powerful, Technology, Simple

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• In 20 or 30 years, you'll be able to hold in your hand as much computing knowledge as exists now in the whole city, or even the whole world.

  Douglas Engelbart

  Technology, Hands, Years

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• Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple Inc, which set the computing world on its ear with the Macintosh in 1984.

  Kevin Mitnick

  Jobs, Apples, Ears

  "They call me a criminal" by Kevin Mitnick, www.theguardian.com. February 22, 2000.

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• A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable.

  Leslie Lamport

  Failure, Technology, Computer

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• Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.

  Alan Perlis

  Humorous, Technology, Needs

  "Epigrams on Programming". ACM SIGPLAN Notices 17 (9), pp. 7-13, pu.inf.uni-tuebingen.de. September 1982.

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• The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do.

  Richard Stallman

  Clouds, Interesting, Cloud Computing

  "Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman". Interview with Bobbie Johnson, www.theguardian.com. September 29, 2008.

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• We believe we're moving out of the Ice Age, the Iron Age, the Industrial Age, the Information Age, to the participation age. You get on the Net and you do stuff. You IM (instant message), you blog, you take pictures, you publish, you podcast, you transact, you distance learn, you telemedicine. You are participating on the Internet, not just viewing stuff. We build the infrastructure that goes in the data center that facilitates the participation age. We build that big friggin' Webtone switch. It has security, directory, identity, privacy, storage, compute, the whole Web services stack.

  Scott McNealy

  Distance, Believe, Moving

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• More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason - including blind stupidity.

  William Wulf

  Names, Stupidity, Sin

  "A Case Against the GOTO," Proceedings of the 25th National ACM Conference, (pp. 791-797), August 1972.

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• The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?

  Larry Ellison

  Fashion, Talking, Ideas

  "Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman" by Bobbie Johnson, www.theguardian.com. September 29, 2008.

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• If you stay up late and you have another hour of work to do, you can just stay up another hour later without running into a wall and having to stop. Whereas it might take three or four hours if you start over, you might finish if you just work that extra hour. If you're a morning person, the day always intrudes a fixed amount of time in the future. So it's much less efficient. Which is why I think computer people tend to be night people - because a machine doesn't get sleepy.

  Bill Joy

  Running, Morning, Wall

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• The cloud services companies of all sizes; the cloud is for everyone. The cloud is a democracy.

  Marc Benioff

  Clouds, Democracy, Size

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• In the practical world of computing, it is rather uncommon that a program, once it performs correctly and satisfactorily, remains unchanged forever.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Forever, World, Computer

  "Program Development by Stepwise Refinement". Communications of the ACM, 14 (4), April 1971.

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• The utility model of computing - computing resources delivered over the network in much the same way that electricity or telephone service reaches our homes and offices today - makes more sense than ever.

  Scott McNealy

  Home, Office, Today

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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 think it's fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created. They're tools of communication, they're tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

  Bill Gates

  Inspiring, Success, Business

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• I would therefore like to posit that computing's central challenge, how not to make a mess of it, has not yet been met.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Challenges, Mets, Mess

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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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• The standard definition of AI is that which we don't understand.

  Bill Joy

  Definitions, Standards

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• Every kid coming out of Harvard, every kid coming out of school now thinks he can be the next Mark Zuckerberg, and with these new technologies like cloud computing, he actually has a shot.

  Marc Andreessen

  School, Kids, Technology

  "The Charlie Rose Show", charlierose.com. February 19, 2009.

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• Object-oriented design is the roman numerals of computing.

  Rob Pike

  Roman Numerals, Design, Objects

  Comment in comp.os.plan9, groups.google.com. 2004.

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• Cloud is about how you do computing, not where you do computing

  Paul Maritz

  Clouds, Cloud Computing

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