Software Quotes - Page 28

• Diaspora starts about a thousand years from now. Most of human civilisation has moved inside computers; essentially, a major branch of our descendants consists of conscious software.

  Greg Egan

  Years, Branches, Diaspora

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• I got bitten by the free software bug in February of 1998 around the time of the Mozilla announcement.

  Andy Hertzfeld

  Mozilla, Bugs, February

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• Free software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer'.

  Richard Stallman

  Beer, Thinking, Liberty

  Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.35, Lulu.com

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• Every decision a person makes stems from the person's values and goals. People can have many different goals and values; fame, profit, love, survival, fun, and freedom, are just some of the goals that a good person might have. When the goal is to help others as well as oneself, we call that idealism. My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software that forbids cooperation, and thus make our society better.

  Richard Stallman

  Fun, Helping Others, People

  Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.75, Lulu.com

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• To create a usable piece of software, you have to fight for every fix, every feature, every little accommodation that will get one more person up the curve. There are no shortcuts. Luck is involved, but you don't win by being lucky, it happens because you fought for every inch.

  Dave Winer

  Fighting, Winning, Curves

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• Cooperation is just like two pagodas - one hardware and one software. Combined, we can take the leadership position in the world.

  Wen Jiabao

  Two, World, Cooperation

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• Second law: The complexity barrier. Software complexity (and therefore that of bugs) grows to the limits of our ability to manage that complexity.

  Boris Beizer

  Law, Limits, Bugs

  Boris Beizer (1990). “Software Testing Techniques”, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company

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• Most of the effort in the software business goes into the maintenance of code that already exists.

  Wietse Venema

  Business, Effort, Maintenance

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• The chakras are very intelligent – they are like the software of the whole computer body.

  Dharma Mittra

  Inspiring, Yoga, Intelligent

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• Now, you can just get a laptop, get some software, put a microphone on it and make a record. You have to know how to do it. It does help if you've had 35 or 40 years of experience in the studio. But, it still levels the playing field so artists can record their own stuff.

  Roger McGuinn

  Artist, Years, Laptops

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• I don't like creating software anymore. It's too exact. It's like karate; there's no room for error.

  John Maeda

  Errors, Creating, Rooms

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• You need to look no further than Apple's iPhone to see how fast brilliantly written software presented on a beautifully designed device with a spectacular user interface will throw all the accepted notions about pricing, billing platforms and brand loyalty right out the window.

  Edgar Bronfman, Jr.

  Loyalty, Iphone, Apples

  "Hell Freezes Over: Warner Music claims Itunes is Digital Music Done Right" by Bryan Gardiner, www.wired.com. November 14, 2007.

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• We know about as much about software quality problems as they knew about the Black Plague in the 1600s. We've seen the victims' agonies and helped burn the corpses. We don't know what causes it; we don't really know if there is only one disease. We just suffer - and keep pouring our sewage into our water supply.

  Tom Van Vleck

  Agony, Water, Suffering

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• … what society overwhelmingly asks for is snake oil. Of course, the snake oil has the most impressive names — otherwise you would be selling nothing — like “Structured Analysis and Design”, “Software Engineering”, “Maturity Models”, “Management Information Systems”, “Integrated Project Support Environments” “Object Orientation” and “Business Process Re-engineering”.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Maturity, Engineering, Snakes

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• Microsoft unleashed something called Bob, a program that's supposed to make Windows easier to use. Until a Bob helper is born, you can look forward to reading - I swear this is true - Microsoft Bob for Dummies.

  Josh Quittner

  Reading, Design, Looks

  "Computers & Technology" by Joshua Quittner, www.sfgate.com. June 11, 1995.

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• Indeed one of the best ways to deflect attacks is to make it look like they're succeeding. It's the software equivalent of playing dead.

  Joel Spolsky

  Looks, Way, Succeed

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• Some cynical people think that every activity must revolve around the mighty dollar, and that anyone saying otherwise is just attempting to delude the public. I will probably never be able to convice them that that isn't always the case, but I do have the satisfaction of knowing that I live in a less dingy world than they do.

  John Carmack

  Thinking, Knowing, People

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• Interactive computers and software will, I think, provide a less costly method of doing some kinds of inquiry, in knowledge acquisition and even reasoning and interaction.

  Roy Romer

  Thinking, Acquisition, Inquiry

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• What would the world be like if you had to develop a power yourself before you could use it? Just as a silly example: How would the comment section on YouTube change if, to use it, you had to have the schooling necessary to have a basic understanding of how computers and the internet work? More seriously, would anyone smart enough to know how to design and build a tank, or a laser guided anti-aircraft missile, or a computer and video editing software be stupid enough to join ISIS? In fact, if such knowledge was required—would it even be possible for there to be standing armies?

  John C. Wright

  Stupid, Smart, Silly

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• The only way to make software secure, reliable, and fast is to make it small.

  Andrew S. Tanenbaum

  Fighting, Way, Secure

  "Some Notes on the 'Who Wrote Linux' Kerfuffle, Release 1.5". www.cs.vu.nl. May 20, 2004.

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• The software programs that make our body run ... were evolved in very different times. We'd like to actually change those programs. One little software program, called the fat insulin receptor gene, basically says, 'Hold onto every calorie, because the next hunting season may not work out so well.' That was in the interests of the species tens of thousands of years ago. We'd like to turn that program off.

  Ray Kurzweil

  Running, Motivation, Inspiration

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• If you want to measure social media ROI, stop wasting your time doing software demos and attending webinars. Just figure out what you want to track, where you can track it, think about both current customers and new customers, and go do it.

  Jay Baer

  Thinking, Media, Track

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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

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• If you want a language that tries to lock up all the sharp objects and fire-making implements, use Pascal or Ada: the Nerf languages, harmless fun for children of all ages, and they won't mar the furniture.

  Scott Fahlman

  Children, Fun, Fire

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• Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty-a beauty cold and austere ... yet sublimely pure and capable of stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Math, Perfection

  "The Study of Mathematics" (1902)

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