Computers Quotes by Ellen Ullman

We don't have to live up to our computer.

— Ellen Ullman

Computer programming has always been a self-taught, maverick occupation.

— Ellen Ullman

The computer's there to serve the human being, not vice versa.

— Ellen Ullman

Tools are not neutral. The computer is not a neutral tool.

— Ellen Ullman

With all the attention given to the personal computer, it's hard to remember that other companion machine in the room - the…

— Ellen Ullman

Computer systems could not work without standards - an agreement among programs and systems about how they will exchange information.

— Ellen Ullman

Our relationship to the computer is much like our relationship to the car: rich, complex, socially messy.

— Ellen Ullman

A computer is not really like us. It is a projection of a very small part of ourselves: that portion devoted to…

— Ellen Ullman

Introduced in the 1960s, multitasking is an engineering strategy for making computers more efficient. Human beings are the slowest elements in a…

— Ellen Ullman

There's some intimacy in reading, some thoughtfulness that doesn't exist in machine experiences.

— Ellen Ullman

People talk about computer programmers as if computers are our whole lives. That's simply not true.

— Ellen Ullman

We build our computer (systems) the way we build our cities: over time, without a plan, on top of ruins

— Ellen Ullman

The biggest problem is that people have stopped being critical about the role of the computer in their lives. These machines went…

— Ellen Ullman

Human thinking can skip over a great deal, leap over small misunderstandings, can contain ifs and buts in untroubled corners of the…

— Ellen Ullman

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

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

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

What happens to people like myself, who have been involved with computing for a long time, is that you begin to see…

— Ellen Ullman

I broke into the ranks of computing in the early 1980s, when women were just starting to poke their shoulder pads through…

— Ellen Ullman

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

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

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

“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

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

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

Multitasking, throughput, efficiency - these are excellent machine concepts, useful in the design of computer systems. But are they principles that nurture…

— Ellen Ullman