"Unix was not designed to stop people from doing stupid things, because that would also stop them from doing clever things." Doug Gwyn "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." Rich Cook "True research is like fumbling in the dark for the right switches. Once you've turned the light on everyone can see..." unknown "An idiot with a computer is a faster, better idiot" Rich Julius "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." Donald Knuth "C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg." Bjarne Stroustrup "I've never met a human being who would want to read 17,000 pages of documentation, and if there was, I'd kill him to get him out of the gene pool." Joseph Costello, President of Cadence "The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable pi can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change." - FORTRAN manual for Xerox computers "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence."- E. W. Dijkstra "It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that [sic] have had prior exposure to BASIC; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." Dijkstra "A system admin's life is a sorry one. The only advantage he has over Emergency Room doctors is that malpractice suits are rare. On the other hand, ER doctors never have to deal with patients installing new versions of their own innards!" Michael O'Brien "The C Programming Language - A language which combines the flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language." "Pascal - A programming language named after a man who would turn over in his grave if he knew about it." PROGRAM - n. - A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. v. tr.- To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward.