Software Quotes - Page 23

• If something's expensive to develop, and somebody's not going to get paid, it won't get developed. So you decide: Do you want software to be written, or not?

  Bill Gates

  Money, Business, Technology

  80 Microcomputing Interview with Dennis Bathory-Kitsz, features.slashdot.org. 1980.

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• The real tight interface is between the book and the reader-the world of the book is plugged right into your brain, never mind the [virtual reality] bodysuit.

  Bill McKibben

  Real, Book, Design

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• We don't think of ourselves as being perfectionists, really. To us it's more about desperately trying to have it sound more or less OK.

  Donald Fagen

  Thinking, Design, Trying

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• In the next 10 years, data science and software will do more for medicine than all of the biological sciences together.

  Vinod Khosla

  Future, Science, Years

  "Vinod Khosla: In The Next 10 Years, Data Science Will Do More For Medicine Than All Biological Sciences Combined". techcrunch.com. September 11, 2013.

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• DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.

  Bill Gates

  Dna, Computer, Biology

  Bill Gates, Nathan Myhrvold, Peter Rinearson (1996). “The road ahead”

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• Software patents, in particular, are very ripe for abuse. The whole system encourages big corporations getting thousands and thousands of patents. Individuals almost never get them.

  Linus Torvalds

  Abuse, Patents, Corporations

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• People enjoy the interaction on the Internet, and the feeling of belonging to a group that does something interesting: that's how some software projects are born.

  Linus Torvalds

  People, Interesting, Feelings

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• Shareware tends to combine the worst of commercial software with the worst of free software.

  Linus Torvalds

  Computer, Economy, Worst

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• If I say I've got two versions of Word - that old one from 1982 that's perfect, with zero defects; or the new one that's got all this cool new stuff, but there might be a few bugs in it - people always want the new one. But I wouldn't want them to operate a plane I was on with software that happened to be the latest greatest release!

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Zero, Two, People

  "The Physicist" by Stewart Brand, www.wired.com. September 1, 1995.

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• Ironically, the thing that will likely make the least improvement in the ease of use of software-based products is new technology. There is little difference technically between a complicated, confusing program and a simple, fun, and powerful product.

  Alan Cooper

  Fun, Powerful, Technology

  Alan Cooper (1999). “The Inmates are Running the Asylum”, Sams Publishing

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• Constrain the user's expectations to match the abilities of the software.

  Bruce Tognazzini

  Expectations, Ability, Constrain

  Bruce Tognazzini (1992). “Tog on Interface”, Addison-Wesley Professional

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• Inadequate use of usability engineering methods in software development projects have been estimated to cost the US economy about $30 billion per year in lost productivity.

  Jakob Nielsen

  Engineering, Years, Cost

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• Software entities (classes, modules, functions, etc.) should be open for extension, but closed for modification.

  Bertrand Meyer

  Class, Etc, Should

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• As the commercial confrontation between [free software] and software-that's-a-product becomes more fierce, patent law's going to be the terrain on which a big piece of the war's going to be fought. Waterloo is here somewhere.

  Eben Moglen

  War, Law, Patents

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• The future belongs to neither the conduit or content players, but those who control the filtering, searching and sense-making tools we will rely on to navigate through the expanses of cyberspace.

  Paul Saffo

  Player, Design, Tools

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• Any good software engineer will tell you that a compiler and an interpreter are interchangeable.

  Tim Berners-Lee

  Engineers, Interpreter

  Donald Knuth, Grady Booch, Linus Torvalds, Steve Wozniak, Vint Cerf (2011). “Leaders in Computing: Changing the Digital World”, p.44, BCS, The Chartered Institute

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• Software constraints are only confining if you use them for what they're intended to be used for.

  David Byrne

  Use, Constraints, Ifs

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• The Very Big Stupid is a thing which breeds by eating The Future. Have you seen it? It sometimes disguises itself as a good-looking quarterly bottom line, derived by closing the R&D department.

  Frank Zappa

  Stupid, Design, Lines

  Frank Zappa, Peter Occhiogrosso (1990). “Real Frank Zappa Book”, p.240, Simon and Schuster

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• Software-industry battles are fought by highly paid and out-of-shape nerds furiously pounding computer keyboards while they guzzle diet Coke. The stakes aren't very dramatic. Life? Liberty? The pursuit of happiness? Nope, it's about stock options.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Dramatic Life, Nerd

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• The software program for motherhood is impossible to fully download into the male brain. You give them two tasks and they're like, 'I have to change the baby and get the dry cleaning?'

  Allison Pearson

  Baby, Motherhood, Two

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• Hey, I'm a good software engineer, but I'm not exactly known for my fashion sense. White socks and sandals don't translate to 'good design sense'.

  Linus Torvalds

  Fashion, White, Design

  Interview with Scott Merrill, techcrunch.com. April 19, 2012.

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• All of us who attended the meeting - including Microsoft - unanimously agreed that unilaterally extending the Java programming language would hurt compatibility among Java tools and programs, would injure other tools vendors and would damage customers' ability to run a Java-based software product on whatever platform they wished.

  James Gosling

  Running, Hurt, Tools

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• In the free/libre software movement, we develop software that respects users' freedom, so we and you can escape from software that doesn't.

  Richard Stallman

  Movement, Libre, Users

  "Is Android really free software?" by Richard Stallman, www.theguardian.com. September 19, 2011.

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• There's not a long track record of people leaving professional sports to become a software developer.

  Curt Schilling

  Sports, Long, People

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• In the early days of the software industry, people cared about copyright and didn't give a damn about patents - they copied each other willy-nilly.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  People, Giving, Patents

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