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" When knowledge passes into code, it changes state; like water turned to ice, it becomes a new thing, with new properties. We use it, but in a human sense, we no longer know it. "

Ellen Ullman

Know

Water

New

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" Truly new inventions take time to play out. "

" 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. "

" People imagine that programming is logical, a process like fixing a clock. Nothing could be further from the truth. "

" I am not intimidated by puerile boys acting like pre-teens. "

Ellen Ullman

I Am

Intimidated

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

" Staring prejudice in the face imposes a cruel discipline: to structure your anger, to achieve a certain dignity, an angry dignity. "

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

" I think technical people now should learn literature, because literature teaches you a great deal about how - the depths and variety of human imagination. "

" Some people hit a profession and just keep going deeper into it, making a life and making it more and more stable. That's not been my experience. I always want to try something new. "

" 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. "

" When I hear the word 'disruption,' in my mind, I think of all these people in the middle who were earning a living. We will sweep away all that money they were earning, and we will move that to the people at the top. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Abhorring error is not necessarily positive. "

" All things change, but we always have to think: what are we leaving behind? "

" The condition of my personal workspace is my own business, as I see it. "

" I like mysteries. "

Ellen Ullman

Mysteries

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

" 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. "

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

" We don't have to live up to our computer. "

Ellen Ullman

Our

Live

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Writing was a way to get away from my life as a programmer, so I wanted to write about other things, but of course nobody wanted to publish another story about a family, unless it was extraordinary. When I began writing about my life as a programmer, however, people were interested. "

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

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