Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" The computer's there to serve the human being, not vice versa. "
Ellen Ullman
Human
Vice
Being
Related Quotes:
" 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
" Tools are not neutral. The computer is not a neutral tool. "
Ellen Ullman
Neutral
Computer
Tools
" Even simple fixes can bring the whole system down. "
Ellen Ullman
Simple
System
Whole
" 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. "
Ellen Ullman
Find
Deep
History
" Our Constitution is designed to change very slowly. It's a feature, not a bug. "
Ellen Ullman
Change
Our
Slowly
" 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
Like
Us
Order
" 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. "
Ellen Ullman
Men
Work
Why
" 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
" No one in the government is seriously penalized when Social Security numbers are stolen and misused; only the number-holders suffer. "
Ellen Ullman
Seriously
Numbers
Government
" I like the little semi-competencies of human beings, I realize. Governance, after all, is a messy business, a world of demi-solutions and compromise, where ideals are tarnished regularly. "
Ellen Ullman
Business
Compromise
World
" 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
" When I am around people I most admire, I tend to hug the wall. "
Ellen Ullman
Hug
I Am
Wall
" Watching a program run is not as revealing as reading its code. "
Ellen Ullman
Reading
Revealing
Code
" 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. "
Ellen Ullman
Know
Understand
Technology
" 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
" Software and digital devices are imbued with the values of their creators. "
Ellen Ullman
Digital
Values
Software
" Y2K has challenged a belief in digital technology that has been almost religious. "
Ellen Ullman
Digital
Almost
Technology
" 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
View
Time
" There's some intimacy in reading, some thoughtfulness that doesn't exist in machine experiences. "
Ellen Ullman
Intimacy
Reading
Machine
" I'm a pessimist. But I think I'd describe my pessimism as broken-hearted optimism. "
Ellen Ullman
Pessimism
Pessimist
Optimism
" I won't use Twitter. Twitter posts are thought-farts. I don't care about unconsidered thoughts of the moment. "
Ellen Ullman
Twitter
Thoughts
Moment
" 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 feel the best villains are the ones you have feelings for. "
Ellen Ullman
Feelings
Feel
You
" 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
" 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
Always
Programming
" We don't have to live up to our computer. "
Ellen Ullman
Up
Our
Live
" A computer is a general-purpose machine with which we engage to do some of our deepest thinking and analyzing. This tool brings with it assumptions about structuredness, about defined interfaces being better. Computers abhor error. "
Ellen Ullman
Assumptions
Thinking
Computers
" I like mysteries. "
Ellen Ullman
Mysteries
Like
" The human mind, as it turns out, is messy. "
Ellen Ullman
Human
Human Mind
Messy
" Human thinking can skip over a great deal, leap over small misunderstandings, can contain ifs and buts in untroubled corners of the mind. But the machine has no corners. Despite all the attempts to see the computer as a brain, the machine has no foreground or background. "
Ellen Ullman
Great
Thinking
See