Famous Quotes on Computers, Programming and Technical Writing

About Technical Writing ...

Technical writing, as a career option, has gained ground over the years. It calls for a unique blend of skills involving writing ability with a strong technical angle. We explore different aspects of technical writing in detail in this new series.

Technical manual should give the operating instructions in plain language. You should get the points in the first reading itself. There should be no ambiguity. Clarity is supreme.

“The problem with allowing the engineers who create a program also to write its Help and Tutorials is that you get people who cannot write, writing Help for people who do not need help.” — Mark Rector

source » http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-educationplus/technical-writing-what-is-special-about-it/article1439040.ece

Cited from Writing.com for Authors ...

The problem with allowing the engineers who create a program also write its Help and Tutorials is that you get people who cannot write, writing Help for people who do not need help. -- Mark Rector

This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read. - Winston Churchill

Take care that you never spell a word wrong. Always before you write a word, consider how it is spelled, and, if you do not remember, turn to a dictionary. It produces great praise to a lady to spell well.-- Thomas Jefferson

Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.-- Jack Lynch

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.-- Flannery O'Conner

source » http://p15.writing.com/main/newsletters/action/archives/id/946-.html

Famous Computer Quotes ...

A thorough software professional is one who when his wife yells at him "goto hell" , worries more about the goto statement than what his wife is upset about. - coding weirdo

Contrary to popular belief, Unix is user friendly. It just happens to be very selective about who it decides to make friends with. - Anonymous

Don't waste all your time just designing. it'll horribly stunt you. take up a job at a grocery store or video rental place or anything, something that puts you in touch with normal people. design people are not normal. they have serious, serious problems and are too arrogant for their own good. try restocking a chip rack or getting yelled at to mop a floor. get some hair on your pubic region. sitting around with a mouse in one hand and an issue of emigre in the other is just making you fatter and uglier. you fat, ugly pig. - Bradford Cox Rewlz

Win98 is just like a higher quality heroin.. it's still not good for us. - Capone

Unix is simple. It just takes a genius to understand its simplicity. - Dennis Ritchie, Unix Co-Creator

To me Windows is like this: It's as though there are hundreds of brands of cars, but all of them come with the same design of engine in them when you buy them...and every year when they make new cars, instead of designing a new engine, they just add more parts onto the same old design so the engine can do new things. They do this so they can still use the same old parts for the engine if they have to, but the engine design has gotten so big that sometimes it won't start at all, or shuts off on its own, or even seizes up so you have to put in a new engine (but only of the same design). So you have this new car with a nice transmission and smooth suspension, but the engine is like a coal burning steam engine, converted to run on diesel, then re-converted to run as a gas-electric hybrid, but with all the old parts still attached to it. No wonder it won't start properly, it stalls often, and it breaks down and the engine has to be reinstalled. - Disgruntled Windows User

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. - Donald Knuth

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do. - Donald Knuth

A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about. - Douglas Adams

A computer without Windows is like a chocolate cake without mustard. - Elfer

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining. - Jeff Raskin

The problem with allowing the engineers who create a program also write its "Help" and "Tutorials" is that you get: People who cannot write, writing "Help" for people who do not need help. - Mark Rector

Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life. - Michael Sinz

It is the fate of operating systems to become free. - Neal Stephenson

How many slums will we bulldoze to build the Information superhighway? The Information Superhighway is just a ****ing metaphor! Give me a break! - Neal Stephenson, "Cryptonomicon"

DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form." - New York Times, November 26, 1991

To err is human..to really screw up you need a computer. - Scott Adams

You go to your TV to turn your brain off. You go to the computer when you want to turn your brain on. - Steve Jobs

Linux is like living in a teepee. No Windows, no Gates, Apache in house. - Usenet Signature

"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." -Pablo Picasso.

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." -Rich Cook.

"Computer dating is fine, if you're a computer." -Rita May Brown.

"All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You'd be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men." -Isaac Asimov.

"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer." -Paul Ehrlich.

"The trouble with the Internet is that it's replacing masturbation as a leisure activity." -Patrick Murray.

"Beware of computer programmers that carry screwdrivers." -Leonard Brandwein.

"UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity." -Dennis Ritchie.

"The perfect computer has been developed. You just feed in your problems and they never come out again." -Al Goodman.

"The most overlooked advantage of owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against whacking them around a bit." -Eric Porterfield.

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