Linux Computers

When Dexter's on the Internet, can Hell be far behind?"

... when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer
has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor.
                -- Fred Brooks

        When managers hold endless meetings, the programmers write games.
When accountants talk of quarterly profits, the development budget is about
to be cut.  When senior scientists talk blue sky, the clouds are about to
roll in.
        Truly, this is not the Tao of Programming.
        When managers make commitments, game programs are ignored.  When
accountants make long-range plans, harmony and order are about to be restored.
When senior scientists address the problems at hand, the problems will soon
be solved.
        Truly, this is the Tao of Programming.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only
say what I wish done," give him a lollipop.

When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple
of asterisked sentences:

        It weighs less than 8 pounds.*
        And costs less than $1,300.**

In tiny type were these "fuller explanations":

      * Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out?  Well, all
        this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power
        pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks
        will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you
        might not be able to figure this out for yourself.

     ** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if
        you really want to.  Or less.
                -- Forbes

When we understand knowledge-based systems, it will be as before --
except our fingertips will have been singed.
                -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982

When we write programs that "learn", it turns out we do and they don't.

Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers
something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.

Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equpped with 18,000 vaccuum tubes and
weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes
and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons.
                -- Popular Mechanics, March 1949

"Who cares if it doesn't do anything?  It was made with our new
Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..."