Linux Computers

APL is a natural extension of assembler language programming;
...and is best for educational purposes.
                -- A. Perlis

APL is a write-only language.  I can write programs in APL, but I can't
read any of them.
                -- Roy Keir

Are we running light with overbyte?

Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to
measure progress.  Some cathedrals took a century to complete.  Can you
imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long?
                -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982

As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.

As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.
                -- Weisert

As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true name.
                -- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie

As in Protestant Europe, by contrast, where sects divided endlessly into
smaller competing sects and no church dominated any other, all is different
in the fragmented world of IBM.  That realm is now a chaos of conflicting
norms and standards that not even IBM can hope to control.  You can buy a
computer that works like an IBM machine but contains nothing made or sold by
IBM itself.  Renegades from IBM constantly set up rival firms and establish
standards of their own.  When IBM recently abandoned some of its original
standards and decreed new ones, many of its rivals declared a puritan
allegiance to IBM's original faith, and denounced the company as a divisive
innovator.  Still, the IBM world is united by its distrust of icons and
imagery.  IBM's screens are designed for language, not pictures.  Graven
images may be tolerated by the luxurious cults, but the true IBM faith relies
on the austerity of the word.
                -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988

As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic
schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve
The Problem, saving the documentation for later.

As of next Thursday, UNIX will be flushed in favor of TOPS-10.
Please update your programs.