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" Computer programming has always been a self-taught, maverick occupation. "
Ellen Ullman
Programming
Computer
Been
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" I used to pass by a large computer system with the feeling that it represented the summed-up knowledge of human beings. It reassured me to think of all those programs as a kind of library in which our understanding of the world was recorded in intricate and exquisite detail. "
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" I came of technical age with UNIX, where I learned with power-greedy pleasure that you could kill a system right out from under yourself with a single command. "
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" Introduced in the 1960s, multitasking is an engineering strategy for making computers more efficient. Human beings are the slowest elements in a system. "
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" I'm pretty bad at crying. "
Ellen Ullman
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" It is one thing for an artist to experiment on a canvas, but it's entirely different to experiment on a living creature. "
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" I like mysteries. "
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" Programming is the art of algorithm design and the craft of debugging errant code. "
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" Computer systems could not work without standards - an agreement among programs and systems about how they will exchange information. "
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" I won't use Twitter. Twitter posts are thought-farts. I don't care about unconsidered thoughts of the moment. "
Ellen Ullman
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" I broke into the ranks of computing in the early 1980s, when women were just starting to poke their shoulder pads through crowds of men. There was no legal protection against 'hostile environments for women.' "
Ellen Ullman
Women
Protection
Men
" I think technical people now should learn literature, because literature teaches you a great deal about how - the depths and variety of human imagination. "
Ellen Ullman
Imagination
You
Great
" I'm in no way saying that women can't take a tough code review. I'm saying that no one should have to take one in a boy-puerile atmosphere. "
Ellen Ullman
Way
Tough
Take
" The human mind, as it turns out, is messy. "
Ellen Ullman
Human
Human Mind
Messy
" Productivity has always been the justification for the prepackaging of programming knowledge. But it is worth asking about the sort of productivity gains that come from the simplifications of click-and-drag. "
Ellen Ullman
Worth
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" When you lose your Visa card, you get a new card with a new number, and any new charges with the old number are blocked. Why can't we do the same with Social Security numbers? "
Ellen Ullman
New
You
Why
" I feel the best villains are the ones you have feelings for. "
Ellen Ullman
Feelings
Feel
You
" Our relationship to the computer is much like our relationship to the car: rich, complex, socially messy. "
Ellen Ullman
Relationship
Rich
Messy
" I think that focusing all experiences through the lens of the Internet is an example of not being able to see history through the eyes of others, to be so enamored of one's present time that one cannot see that the world was once elsewise and was not about you. "
Ellen Ullman
History
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Time
" Through the miracle of natural genetic recombination, each child, with the sole exception of an identical twin, is conceived as a unique being. Even the atmosphere of the womb works its subtle changes, and by the time we emerge into the light, we are our own persons. "
Ellen Ullman
Own
Light
Changes
" So many people for so many years have promoted technology as the answer to everything. The economy wasn't growing: technology. Poor people: technology. Illness: technology. As if, somehow, technology in and of itself would be a solution. Yet machine values are not always human values. "
Ellen Ullman
Growing
Values
Technology
" You can only get a beginner's mind once. "
Ellen Ullman
Get
Only
Mind
" It has occurred to me that if people really knew how software got written, I'm not sure they'd give their money to a bank or get on an airplane ever again. "
Ellen Ullman
Airplane
People
Software
" Watching a program run is not as revealing as reading its code. "
Ellen Ullman
Reading
Revealing
Code
" I'm a pessimist. But I think I'd describe my pessimism as broken-hearted optimism. "
Ellen Ullman
Pessimism
Pessimist
Optimism
" What happens to people like myself, who have been involved with computing for a long time, is that you begin to see how many of the 'new' ideas are simply old ones coming back into view on the swing of the pendulum, with new and faster hardware to back it up. "
Ellen Ullman
People
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Time
" The computer's there to serve the human being, not vice versa. "
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Human
Vice
Being
" If you've ever watched someone who is a mother talk on the phone, feed the dog, bounce the baby, it's just astounding to see someone manage, more or less well, to do all those things. But on a computer, multitasking is really binary. The task is either in the foreground, or it's not. "
Ellen Ullman
Mother
You
Dog
" I'm a dark thoughts writer. "
Ellen Ullman
Dark
Writer
Thoughts
" Multitasking, throughput, efficiency - these are excellent machine concepts, useful in the design of computer systems. But are they principles that nurture human thought and imagination? "
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Thought
Imagination
Design
" Y2K has challenged a belief in digital technology that has been almost religious. "
Ellen Ullman
Digital
Almost
Technology