Computer programming has always been a self-taught, maverick occupation. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Our relationship to the computer is much like our relationship to the car: rich, complex, socially messy. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
A computer is not really like us. It is a projection of a very small part of ourselves: that portion devoted to… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Computer systems could not work without standards - an agreement among programs and systems about how they will exchange information. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
With all the attention given to the personal computer, it's hard to remember that other companion machine in the room - the… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
We build our computer (systems) the way we build our cities: over time, without a plan, on top of ruins — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
People talk about computer programmers as if computers are our whole lives. That's simply not true. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
There's some intimacy in reading, some thoughtfulness that doesn't exist in machine experiences. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Introduced in the 1960s, multitasking is an engineering strategy for making computers more efficient. Human beings are the slowest elements in a… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
I broke into the ranks of computing in the early 1980s, when women were just starting to poke their shoulder pads through… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
I used to pass by a large computer system with the feeling that it represented the summed-up knowledge of human beings. It… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
I don't know where anyone ever got the idea that technology, in and of itself, was a savior. Like all human-created 'progress,'… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
What happens to people like myself, who have been involved with computing for a long time, is that you begin to see… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
The biggest problem is that people have stopped being critical about the role of the computer in their lives. These machines went… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
If you've ever watched someone who is a mother talk on the phone, feed the dog, bounce the baby, it's just astounding… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Human thinking can skip over a great deal, leap over small misunderstandings, can contain ifs and buts in untroubled corners of the… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Multitasking, throughput, efficiency - these are excellent machine concepts, useful in the design of computer systems. But are they principles that nurture… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
I hate the new word processors that want to tell you, as you're typing, that you made a mistake. I have to… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
The programmer, who needs clarity, who must talk all day to a machine that demands declarations, hunkers down into a low-grade annoyance.… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
“The machine seemed to understand time and space, but it didn’t, not as we do. We are analog, fluid, swimming in a… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Closed environments dominated the computing world of the 1970s and early '80s. An operating system written for a Hewlett-Packard computer ran only… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
A computer is a general-purpose machine with which we engage to do some of our deepest thinking and analyzing. This tool brings… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
So many people for so many years have promoted technology as the answer to everything. The economy wasn't growing: technology. Poor people:… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
I think technical people now should learn literature, because literature teaches you a great deal about how - the depths and variety of human… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share
The web is just another stunning point in the two-hundred-thousand-year history of human beings on earth. The taming of fire; the discovery of penicillin;… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share
When I am writing, and occasionally achieve single focus and presence, I finally feel that is where I'm supposed to be. Everything else is… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share
I don't know where anyone ever got the idea that technology, in and of itself, was a savior. Like all human-created 'progress,' computers are… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share
“I believed my motivations were clear: to help the patient see the pattern that had been imposed upon her, this endless repetition of being… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share
It had to happen to me sometime: sooner or later, I would have to lose sight of the cutting edge. That moment every technical… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share
I've always written. I'm from an older generation of programmers [who] did not come out of engineering. [A]ll sorts of people were drawn in… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share
Through the miracle of natural genetic recombination, each child, with the sole exception of an identical twin, is conceived as a unique being. Even… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share
Staring prejudice in the face imposes a cruel discipline: to structure your anger, to achieve a certain dignity, an angry dignity. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share
Y2K has challenged a belief in digital technology that has been almost religious. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share
