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… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Evolution, dismissed as a sloppy programmer, has seen fit to create us as a wild amalgam of everything that came before us:… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
It has occurred to me that if people really knew how software got written, I'm not sure they'd give their money to… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
When knowledge passes into code, it changes state; like water turned to ice, it becomes a new thing, with new properties. We… — 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
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
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
“There is a purpose of life in the nerd world, which is treating reality as code, and optimizing it. Life becomes a… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
I don't like the idea that Facebook controls how people express themselves and changes it periodically according to whatever algorithms they use… — 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
My approach to being a self-taught programmer was to find out who was smart and who would be helpful, and these were… — 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
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
Writing was a way to get away from my life as a programmer, so I wanted to write about other things, but… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
I'm in no way saying that women can't take a tough code review. I'm saying that no one should have to take… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
Programming is the art of algorithm design and the craft of debugging errant code. — 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
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
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
The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
What I hope is that those with the knowledge of the humanities break into the closed society where code gets written: invade… — 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
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
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 Image
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 Image
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 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,' computers are… — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
Software and digital devices are imbued with the values of their creators. — Ellen Ullman Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
