202 Lines About 101 Computers

April 18, 2008 3:47 AM

101 Great Mostly Pretty Good and Hopefully Correctly Attributed Quotes About Computers and Programming. But Wait There's More! Yep, 101 More Quotes plus an extra extra added bonus for a limited time, the second list as originally published in Spanish, because it's fun to read Isaac Asimov and Emo Philips in another language, and Lou Dobbs will get so pissed off.

If you don't want to RTFAs, here are all the quotes that mention sex:

"Software is like sex: It's better when it's free." (Linus Torvalds)

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you're providing support for a lifetime." (Michael Sinz)

"Web Services are like teenage sex. Everyone is talking about doing it, and those who are actually doing it are doing it badly." (Michelle Bustamante)

"Saying that Java is nice because it works on all OSes is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders." (Alanna)

posted by wendell (18 comments total)

thanks...but pleawsenotethat Dobbsis married to a lady from Mexico.
posted by Postroad at 3:56 AM on April 18

So they really are only taking the jobs that no Americans wanted... *rimshot*
posted by wendell at 4:17 AM on April 18 [2 favorites]

i'm down for anything that pisses lou dobbs off.
posted by flyinghamster at 4:30 AM on April 18

I didn't know she went on to become a Java guru after Jagged Little Pill.

Also, that Picasso quote always pisses me off. First of all, he's just wrong. Computers can raise plenty of questions. But more importantly, what exactly is wrong with answers? Asking questions is important, obviously, but that's because searching for and finding the answer is rewarding. If computers help do that, how are they "useless".

Pah-casso MORE LIKE.

There are some good ones in here, though.
posted by DU at 4:44 AM on April 18

This has been a mantra of mine for years:

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are–by definition–not smart enough to debug it."
(Brian Kernighan)

As a programmer, I'm completely and totally obsessed with readability and maintenance. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this situation...
posted by butterstick at 5:34 AM on April 18 [2 favorites]

That Kernighan quote has been applicable to me in my latest job. My boss is 10x smarter than me but more of a "I'll just dash this extremely clever hack in" programmer than a software engineer. So when he does create a bug, it's an absolute nightmare for me to find because his "extremely clever hack" is already too hard for me to find, even if it were all well-documented and had good variable names.
posted by DU at 5:54 AM on April 18

"There are only two industries that refer to their customers as 'users'." (Edward Tufte)

Yeah, I'm holding.... a laptop.
posted by three blind mice at 7:06 AM on April 18

thanks...but pleawsenotethat Dobbsis married to a lady from Mexico.

And I have a black friend.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:41 AM on April 18 [1 favorite]

spiderwire's Law of Coding Efficiency: Programmer productivity is non-linear: for example, doubling the number of average programmers working on a project will double the time to completion, whereas doubling the number of truly extraordinary programmers on a project will halve the time needed to complete a redundant implementation that is completely incompatible with any previous versions.
posted by spiderwire at 9:44 AM on April 18 [2 favorites]

so... no-one else was disapointed by the list having more than 5 quotes on it then...?

They really don't make geeks like they used to.

In my day they were all made in assembler. Push, push, push, then pop...
posted by twine42 at 3:06 PM on April 18

so... no-one else was disappointed by the list having more than 5 quotes on it then...?

I was too busy being furious that the lists didn't start at 0.
posted by Gary at 3:17 PM on April 18 [1 favorite]

I can't believe my favorite quote on software usability isn't there - "Using a computer should be easier than not using a computer."
posted by deadmessenger at 4:13 PM on April 18 [1 favorite]

1. "19 Jan 2038 at 3:14:07 AM"
   (End of the word according to Unix–2^32 seconds after January 1, 1970)

500 ~$ date -ur $((2**31-1))
Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 GMT 2038

FAIL.
posted by ryanrs at 5:54 PM on April 18

For GNU/whatever, try:
python -c 'from time import *; print asctime(gmtime(2**31-1))'
posted by ryanrs at 6:17 PM on April 18

I can't believe my favorite quote on software usability isn't there - "Using a computer should be easier than not using a computer."

I'm so using this.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:04 AM on April 19

Um. Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 GMT 2038 is the end of time. Just see what happens one second later:

$ python -c 'from time import *; print asctime(gmtime(2**31))'
Fri Dec 13 20:45:52 1901

posted by djfiander at 8:53 AM on April 19

this is kinda off topic, but I believe I was doing mushrooms when I last encountered these lists (I know, what type of fucking geek takes mushrooms and then surfs the web. this kind, bitches!)

As a result, this is very interesting to reread (esp the second list) because every quote brings up the strangest sense of intense de ja vu I've ever experienced.

That is all.
posted by es_de_bah at 2:38 PM on April 19

Um. Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 GMT 2038 is the end of time.

Yes, 2^31-1 seconds after 1970-01-01, not 2^32 as claimed in the quote.
posted by ryanrs at 2:47 PM on April 19