Ellen Ullman quotes
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“We build our computer (systems) the way we build our cities: over time, without a plan, on top of ruins”
-- Ellen Ullman -
“Software engineering is not about right and wrong but only better and worse”
-- Ellen Ullman#Engineering Quotes #Software Quotes #Software Engineering Quotes
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“The corollary of constant change is ignorance. This is not often talked about: we computer experts barely know what we're doing. We're good at fussing and figuring out. We function well in a sea of unknowns. Our experience has only prepared us to deal with confusion. A programmer who denies this is probably lying, or else is densely unaware of himself.”
-- Ellen UllmanSource : Ellen Ullman (2012). “Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents”, p.110, Macmillan
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“But you can't stop knowing something, can you?”
-- Ellen UllmanSource : Ellen Ullman (2012). “By Blood”, p.104, Pushkin Press
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“The programmer, who needs clarity, who must talk all day to a machine that demands declarations, hunkers down into a low-grade annoyance. It is here that the stereotype of the programmer, sitting in a dim room, growling from behind Coke cans, has its origins. The disorder of the desk, the floor; the yellow Post-It notes everywhere; the whiteboards covered with scrawl: all this is the outward manifestation of the messiness of human thought. The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer.”
-- Ellen UllmanSource : Ellen Ullman (2012). “Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents”, p.24, Pushkin Press
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“I've always written. I'm from an older generation of programmers [who] did not come out of engineering. [A]ll sorts of people were drawn in from the social sciences and humanities.”
-- Ellen Ullman -
“The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer.”
-- Ellen Ullman -
“To be a programmer is to develop a carefully managed relationship with error. There's no getting around it. You either make your accomodations with failure, or the work will become intolerable.”
-- Ellen UllmanSource : "The myth of order" by Ellen Ullman, www.wired.com. April 1, 1999.
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“You just can't let anything or anyone get in the way of who you are.”
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Source : A. R. Ammons (1996). “Set in motion: essays, interviews, and dialogues”, Univ of Michigan Pr
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“Someday was the thing he had, because it was a lot harder to ruin than today.”
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Source : "Anselm Kiefer’s Remembrance of Things Past" by Kisa Lala, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 19, 2010.
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“It's better to live down a scandal than to ruin one's life.”
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