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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Ellen Ullman

Early

World

Software

" 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. "

" I think many people have wonderful stories inside them and the talent to tell those stories. But the writing life, with its isolation and uncertain outcomes, keeps most from the task. "

" Y2K has challenged a belief in digital technology that has been almost religious. "

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

" I don't consider myself a Jewish writer. "

" The brain is plastic, continuously changing its organization. "

" Our Constitution is designed to change very slowly. It's a feature, not a bug. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" It's possible to let technology absorb what we know and then re-express it in intricate mechanisms - parts and circuit boards and software objects - mechanisms we can use but do not understand in crucial ways. This not-knowing is fine while everything works as we expected. "

" 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. "

" Even simple fixes can bring the whole system down. "

" With every advance, you have to look over your shoulder and know what you're giving up - look over your shoulder and look at what falls away. "

" There is always one more bug to fix. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Watching a program run is not as revealing as reading its code. "

" 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. "

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

" When I am writing, and occasionally achieve single focus and presence, I finally feel that is where I'm supposed to be. Everything else is kind of anxiety. "

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

" 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. "

" UNIX always presumes you know what you're doing. You're the human being, after all, and it is a mere operating system. "

" After we have put our intimate secrets and credit card numbers online, what can prevent us from putting our elections there as well? "

" You can only get a beginner's mind once. "

" Abhorring error is not necessarily positive. "

" There's some intimacy in reading, some thoughtfulness that doesn't exist in machine experiences. "