If you build a better mousetrap, you will catch better mice.

If you build a better mousetrap, you will catch better mice.

The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come read more

The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.

Science is simply common sense at its best--that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

Science is simply common sense at its best--that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of read more

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source read more

Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says read more

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.

The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in read more

FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
PL/I --'the fatal disease'-- belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence.
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.