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" 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. "

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" 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

" I like mysteries. "

Ellen Ullman

Mysteries

" 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. "

" A computer is not really like us. It is a projection of a very small part of ourselves: that portion devoted to logic, order, rule and clarity. "

Ellen Ullman

Order

" The act of voting, to put it in computing terms, is a question of user interface. "

" I won't use Twitter. Twitter posts are thought-farts. I don't care about unconsidered thoughts of the moment. "

" People talk about computer programmers as if computers are our whole lives. That's simply not true. "

" Introduced in the 1960s, multitasking is an engineering strategy for making computers more efficient. Human beings are the slowest elements in a system. "

" I think storytelling in general is how we really deeply know things. It's ancient. "

" No one in the government is seriously penalized when Social Security numbers are stolen and misused; only the number-holders suffer. "

" It will not work to keep asking men to change. Many have no real objective to do so. There's no reward for them. Why should they change? They're doing well inside the halls of coding. "

" I'm a pessimist. But I think I'd describe my pessimism as broken-hearted optimism. "

" To be a programmer is to develop a carefully managed relationship with error. There's no getting around it. You either make your accommodations with failure, or the work will become intolerable. "

" Has Google appropriated the word 'search?' If so, I find it sad. Search is a deep human yearning, an ancient trope in the recorded history of human life. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I fear for the world the Internet is creating. "

" Genetics is where we come from. It's deeply natural to want to know. "

" My approach to being a self-taught programmer was to find out who was smart and who would be helpful, and these were - these are both men and women. And without learning from my co-workers, I never could've gone on in the profession as long as I did. "

" 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. "

" Closed environments dominated the computing world of the 1970s and early '80s. An operating system written for a Hewlett-Packard computer ran only on H.P. computers; I.B.M. controlled its software from chips up to the user interfaces. "

" I hate to see capable, smart people out of work - young or old. "

" When I am around people I most admire, I tend to hug the wall. "

" I'm a dark thoughts writer. "

" Technology does not run backward. Once a technical capability is out there, it is out there for good. "

" With all the attention given to the personal computer, it's hard to remember that other companion machine in the room - the printer. "

" 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. "

" Reading code is like reading all things written: You have to scribble, make a mess, remind yourself that the work comes to you through trial and error and revision. "

" The world of programmers is not going to change on its own. "

" Software and digital devices are imbued with the values of their creators. "