Andrew S. Tanenbaum Quotes & Sayings

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

A couple of years ago this guy called Ken Brown wrote a book saying that Linus stole Linux from me It later came out that Microsoft had paid him to do this — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Microkernels are not a pipe dream. They represent proven technology. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

I have a mouse, but don't have a mouse driver for MINIX and have never felt the need to write one. Typing "rm x y z" is a lot faster than clicking five times and then having to convince the system that you really, truly, mean it and this is not a mistake and that you are consenting adult over 18 and that you completely understand the consequences and you still want to do it. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

XML combines the efficiency of text files with the readability of binary files — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

However, as every parent of a small child knows, converting a large object into small fragments is considerably easier than the reverse process. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

While most people can talk rationally about kernel design and portability, the issue of free-ness is 100% emotional. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

A multithreaded file system is only a performance hack. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

I can type faster than I can point. And my mother told me that pointing
is impolite. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Unfortunately, the current generation of mail programs do not have checkers to see if the sender knows what he is talking about. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Linux is a leprosy; ... This statement is not grammatically or factually correct. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

A refund for defective software might be nice, except it would bankrupt the entire software industry in the first year. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

A lot of other people wanted a free production UNIX with lots of bells and whistles and wanted to convert MINIX into that. I was dragged along in the maelstrom for a while, but when Linux came along, I was actually relieved that I could go back to professoring. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

But in all honesty, I would suggest that people who want a modern "free" OS look around for a microkernel-based, portable OS, like maybe GNU or something like that. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

I really am not angry with Linus. Honest. He's not angry with me either. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Writing a portable OS is not much harder than a nonportable one, and all systems should be written with portability in mind these days. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

If anyone had realized that within 10 years this tiny system that was picked up almost by accident was going to be controlling 50 million computers, considerably more thought might have gone into it. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

The good thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

The only real argument for monolithic systems was performance, and there is now enough evidence showing that microkernel systems can be just as fast as monolithic systems. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Fight Features. ... The only way to make software secure, reliable, and fast is to make it small. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

UNIX does not allow path names to be prefixed by a drive name or number; that would be precisely the kind of device dependence that operating systems ought to eliminate. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

I had never engaged in remote multishrink psychoanalysis on this scale before, so it was a fascinating experience. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

With current technology it is possible to put four floppy disk drives in a personal computer. It is just that doing so would be pointless. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum