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" Computer systems could not work without standards - an agreement among programs and systems about how they will exchange information. "
Ellen Ullman
How
Work
Will
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" I was a girl who came into the clubhouse, into the treehouse, with the sign on the door saying, 'No girls allowed,' and the reception was not always a good one. "
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Door
" Technology does not run backward. Once a technical capability is out there, it is out there for good. "
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Technical
" 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. "
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Way
Tough
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" We don't have to live up to our computer. "
Ellen Ullman
Up
Our
Live
" I'm a pessimist. But I think I'd describe my pessimism as broken-hearted optimism. "
Ellen Ullman
Pessimism
Pessimist
Optimism
" The computer's there to serve the human being, not vice versa. "
Ellen Ullman
Human
Vice
Being
" I'm pretty bad at crying. "
Ellen Ullman
Crying
Pretty
Bad
" Genetics is where we come from. It's deeply natural to want to know. "
Ellen Ullman
Genetics
Want
Natural
" I don't like the idea that Facebook controls how people express themselves and changes it periodically according to whatever algorithms they use to figure out what they should do or the whim of some programmer or some CEO. That bothers me a great deal. "
Ellen Ullman
People
Great
Facebook
" There is always one more bug to fix. "
Ellen Ullman
Bug
Fix
Always
" I am not intimidated by puerile boys acting like pre-teens. "
Ellen Ullman
Like
I Am
Intimidated
" Even simple fixes can bring the whole system down. "
Ellen Ullman
Simple
System
Whole
" Evolution, dismissed as a sloppy programmer, has seen fit to create us as a wild amalgam of everything that came before us: except for the realm of insects, the whole history of life on earth is inscribed within our bodies. "
Ellen Ullman
Earth
Life
Create
" I hate the new word processors that want to tell you, as you're typing, that you made a mistake. I have to turn off all that crap. It's like, shut up - I'm thinking now. I will worry about that sort of error later. I'm a human being. I can still read this, even though it's wrong. You stupid machine, the fact that you can't is irrelevant to me. "
Ellen Ullman
You
Thinking
Stupid
" With code, what it means is what it does. It doesn't express, not really. It's a very bounded conversation. And writing is not bounded. That's what's hard about it. "
Ellen Ullman
Hard
Conversation
Code
" 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
Think
Time
" After we have put our intimate secrets and credit card numbers online, what can prevent us from putting our elections there as well? "
Ellen Ullman
Secrets
Credit
Elections
" The human mind, as it turns out, is messy. "
Ellen Ullman
Human
Human Mind
Messy
" Computer programming has always been a self-taught, maverick occupation. "
Ellen Ullman
Programming
Computer
Been
" It is one thing for an artist to experiment on a canvas, but it's entirely different to experiment on a living creature. "
Ellen Ullman
Thing
Living
Artist
" I don't know where anyone ever got the idea that technology, in and of itself, was a savior. Like all human-created 'progress,' computers are problematic, giving and taking away. "
Ellen Ullman
Progress
Giving
Computers
" 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
" Abhorring error is not necessarily positive. "
Ellen Ullman
Necessarily
Error
Positive
" What I hope is that those with the knowledge of the humanities break into the closed society where code gets written: invade it. "
Ellen Ullman
Knowledge
Break
Hope
" Programmers seem to be changing the world. It would be a relief, for them and for all of us, if they knew something about it. "
Ellen Ullman
Seem
Relief
Knew
" There's some intimacy in reading, some thoughtfulness that doesn't exist in machine experiences. "
Ellen Ullman
Intimacy
Reading
Machine
" 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
" Before the advent of the Web, if you wanted to sustain a belief in far-fetched ideas, you had to go out into the desert, or live on a compound in the mountains, or move from one badly furnished room to another in a series of safe houses. "
Ellen Ullman
Ideas
Desert
Live
" It had to happen to me sometime: sooner or later, I would have to lose sight of the cutting edge. That moment every technical person fears - the fall into knowledge exhaustion, obsolescence, techno-fuddy-duddyism - there was no reason to think I could escape it forever. "
Ellen Ullman
Think
Fall
Knowledge
" The web is just another stunning point in the two-hundred-thousand-year history of human beings on earth. The taming of fire; the discovery of penicillin; the publication of 'Jane Eyre' - add anything you like. "
Ellen Ullman
Discovery
History
Fire