Technology Quotes

High technology has done us one great service: It has retaught us the delight of performing simple and primordial tasks - chopping wood, building a fire, drawing water from a spring.

Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more ‘user-friendly’… Their best approach so far has been to take all the old brochures and stamp the words ‘user-friendly’ on the cover.

The sooner you start coding a program, the longer it will take.

The difference between e-mail and regular mail is that computers handle e-mail, and computers never decide to come to work one day and shoot all the other computers.

Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.

If at first you don't succeed; call it version 1.0.

It was a pivotal moment in the history of computers and the history of advertising.

The Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.

Every program is a part of some other program and rarely fits.

The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.

Computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhapsonly weigh 1 1/2 tons.

The bulk of all patents are crap. Spending time reading them is stupid. It’s up to the patent owner to do so, and to enforce them.

[Smart] is an elusive concept. There's a certain sharpness, an ability to absorb new facts. To ask an insightful question. To relate to domains that may not seem connected at first. A certain creativity that allows people to be effective.

The Internet is like a giant jellyfish. You can't step on it. You can't go around it. You've got to get through it.

Re graphics: A picture is worth 10K words - but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.

If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.

Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.

Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.

Good code is its own best documentation.

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

First, solve the problem. Then, write the code.

I am a hard-core believer that the clean desktop is the way to go... At the same time, we told OEMs that if they were going to put a bunch of icons on the desktop, then so were we.

Software expands to consume all available resources.