Date: Tue, 05 Nov 1996 21:15:09 GMT Server: NCSA/1.5 Content-type: text/html Last-modified: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 23:37:55 GMT Content-length: 8170 Andy "Krazy" Glew's Favorite Quotes and Sayings

Andy "Krazy" Glew's
Favorite Quotes and Sayings

This collection started out as a set of IBM computer cards pasted to the wall of McGill's McConnell Engineering Computer Facility, where I operated the RJE site and provided programming advice, was pasted to the glass wall of my office at Gould, and has followed me around.


Summus non Americae, eh?
-- The Canadian National Motto
BUGS: it's the PIPELINE, stupid!!!
-- Andy Glew
Bypasses - just say no.
-- Andy Glew
An Architect
A Micro-Architect
-- Robert Geva

(You will not be able to see this without HTML 3, supporting the "BIG" and "SMALL" HTML commands.)


Measure twice, cut once.
-- "This Old House"
Virtual - something that isn't there, but appears to be.

Transparent - something that is there, but doesn't appear to be.


"In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."
--- Al Rogers, Global SchoolHouse Network, speaking at CUE
Glew comment:
I wonder if there is some correlation between "liberal" and "ability to learn and adapt to new things", so that liberalism is a trait that has a survival advantage in times of rapid change, but which is of less advantage during the long intervals of less change. The computer industry may act as an example: profoundly liberal when it started, conservative now that the time of great innovations and new ideas has passed.

The 3 most important facts in programming:
  1. There are N numbers in the set 0..N - not!.
    ---paraphrased from Stan Kelly-Bootle
  2. Any programming problem can be solved by adding a level of indirection.
    ---Unknown
  3. Any performance problem can be solved by removing a level of indirection.
    ---Mike Haertel

---Compiled by Mike Haertel.


Q: What is the single most important fact in Computer Science?

A: The fact that there are N+1 elements in the set {0..N}

---Stan Kelly-Bootle


Names are a scarce resource.
---Andy Glew
If it ain't broke, find something else to fix
-- Tim Olson, AMD
The worst maxim around is "Don't fix it if it ain't broke". You'd better be improving it, because your competitor is.
---Wayne Calloway, Pepsico CEO
---FORTUNE April 10, 1989
All great ideas eventually degenerate to hardware
---Peter Drucker?

(The poor ideas remain in software)


Computer memory requirements are growing by 1 address bit / 18 months
---IBM, 1987
If your users don't cost more than the appropriate computers, you should get better users (unless they are grad students)
---andy@polya.stanford.edu

(Justification for running emacs on Cray)


ALWAYS code to be reused. Because then your code can be reused. Saying that "this code will never be reused" and coding that way is a self fulfilling prophecy.
---Andy Glew
There has never been a good product designed by a committee.

Keep a decade behind.

I'm all for simplicity. If it's very complicated I can't understandit.

Parity is for farmers.

---Seymour Cray


Now that I have taught you how to avoid division, the next time I will teach you how to avoid multiplication.

---Seymour Cray, talking to numerical analysts.


Let's make smart machines to run slower software faster!
---Bob Campbell, uw-beaver!tikal!bobc
Flon's axiom:
There does not now, nor will there ever, exist a programming language in which it is the least bit hard to write bad programs.

Development is maintenance.
---Brian E. Marick
"Do you really want to do this?" is a question that should never be asked unless there is a chance that the answer is "No".

Otherwise, if you are asked this question 9 times a day, answering "Yes", the 10th time will have you answering out of habit.


The 10th axiom of Systemantics
When a fail-safe system fails, it fails by failing to fail safe.

---John Gall, Systemantics


Scientific applications grow a factor of 100 every 10 years
---Giles
Perfection is the enemy of the dissertation
---Ivan Sutherland
Perfection is the enemy of completion.
---Andy Glew
If all else fails, follow the instructions.

No! No! No! Read the instructions, bearing in mind they're probably fucked up anyway!
---Andy Glew

Indirection is the right direction.
---Andy Glew
Never put off until run time what can be done at compile time.
You wouldn't believe the shit I got from late binding advocates the first time I posted this to a Gould newsgroup!
---Andy Glew.

Never put off until execution time what can be done at decode time.
---Andy Glew
Recurses! Called again...

Recurse you, Mad Baron!


It's easier to apologize than to ask permission.
---Grace Hopper
We need a coalition to stamp out smart I/O devices.
---Chris Torek
Most "smart" I/O controllers are, in fact, "smart-ass" I/O controllers.
---Rob Pike (paraphrased)
An educated man knows of a synonym for every concept.
The Titanic Effect
The severity with which a system fails is proportional to the intensity of the designers' belief that it cannot.

In the early 1970s 8K of ROM was equal to 8 bits of register space. What a reason for microcode!
---Info from Patterson, 1985
Instructions should not bind together operations which an optimizing compiler might otherwise choose to separate in order to produce a more efficient program.
---Brian Case
It's just a shift to the left
And then a shift to the ri-i-i-i-ght
Get a load of those MIPS
And the code's real ti-i-ight
This lockstep pipeline
Really drives me insa-a-a-a-a-ane
Let's do the pre-charge again!
---Brian Case
Measurement of repetition is not equivalent to repetition of measurement.
---Eugene Miya
The best is the enemy of the good.
RISC
Relegates Important Stuff to Compilers

The maxim Nothing avails but perfection may be spelled P A R A L Y S I S

---Winston Churchill


Turning off the type and range checking after the program is debugged is like throwing away the lifeboats after the maiden voyage.

(Or like travelling without a convoy through a submarine war zone.)


The biggest (and most common) mistake in computer design is not providing enough address bits.
---Bell and Mudge, "Evolution of PDP-11"
Rules of Thumb

--- UNIX International, May 7, 1990


Rule for debugging:
When in doubt, print it out!

Buying clothes more than once a decade is a waste of time
--- Andy Glew

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