Our relationship to the computer is much like our relationship to the car: rich, complex, socially messy. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Software engineering is not about right and wrong but only better and worse — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Computer programming has always been a self-taught, maverick occupation. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
People imagine that programming is logical, a process like fixing a clock. Nothing could be further from the truth. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Y2K has challenged a belief in digital technology that has been almost religious. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Programming is the art of algorithm design and the craft of debugging errant code. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Technology does not run backward. Once a technical capability is out there, it is out there for good. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Programmers seem to be changing the world. It would be a relief, for them and for all of us, if they knew… — 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
With code, what it means is what it does. It doesn't express, not really. It's a very bounded conversation. And writing is… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Reading code is like reading all things written: You have to scribble, make a mess, remind yourself that the work comes to… — 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
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
UNIX always presumes you know what you're doing. You're the human being, after all, and it is a mere operating system. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Productivity has always been the justification for the prepackaging of programming knowledge. But it is worth asking about the sort of productivity… — 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
The corollary of constant change is ignorance. This is not often talked about: we computer experts barely know what we're doing. We're… — 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
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
“Debugging: what an odd word. As if "bugging" were the job of putting in bugs, and debugging the task of removing them.… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
It's possible to let technology absorb what we know and then re-express it in intricate mechanisms - parts and circuit boards and… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
It had to happen to me sometime: sooner or later, I would have to lose sight of the cutting edge. That moment… — 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
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
“I fear for the world the Internet is creating. Before the advent of the web, if you wanted to sustain a belief… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
“It is best to be the CEO; it is satisfactory to be an early employee, maybe the fifth or sixth or perhaps… — 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
Software and digital devices are imbued with the values of their creators. — 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
To be a programmer is to develop a carefully managed relationship with error. There's no getting around it. You either make your… — 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
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
