Quotes & Sayings About Computer Science

Her computer's fan whirred to life, blowing warm air onto her fingers. Two flame-red slits glowed from the monitor. The speakers boomed. "I lived! I died! I live again!"
Olivie had dealt with blue screens, frozen hourglasses, and even the odd hardware conflict back in the day. This was new. — Choong JayVee

We need to have making, including computer science, shop, etc. as part of the core curriculum from the beginning, not just an optional afterschool thing. Things like First Robotics and all of those great programs need to become mainstream. — Megan Smith

For those who wish to stay and work in computer science or technology, fields badly in need of their services, let's roll out the welcome mat. — Sheldon Adelson

Most papers in computer science describe how their author learned what someone else already knew. — Peter Landin

This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. — Michael Crichton

What's in your hands I think and hope is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it that you can make it more. — Alan J. Perlis

Trees sprout up just about everywhere in computer science ... — Donald Knuth

Computer science is fascinating. As you study computer science, you will find that you develop your mind. It is literally like doing Buddhist exercises all day long. — Frederick Lenz

Perhaps writers should never be allowed to get together in a workplace context. It's not like studying computer science, after all. The emotions are at large, and are shared and are questioned. There is a vulnerability. — Graham Joyce

Overstimulation has been the real drawback. I need to find ways to stop thinking about analysis of algorithms, in order to do various other things that human beings ought to do. — Donald Ervin Knuth

Computer science has as much to do with computers as astronomy has to do with telescopes. — Edsger Dijkstra

On second thought, this might not be spurious. Computer science doctorates vs. Comic book sales — Tyler Vigen

The computer was, to the best of my feelings about the subject, not thinking like a mathematician, and it was much more successful, because it was thinking not like a mathematician. — Kenneth Appel

In the U.S. there are two types of hipsters: those who know how to program and those who serve coffee. — Cesar Hidalgo

If I were king, I would redress an abuse which cuts back, as it were, one half of human kind. I would have women participate in all human rights, especially those of the mind. — Emilie Du Chatelet

I have met bright students in computer science who have never seen the source code of a large program. They may be good at writing small programs, but they can't begin to learn the different skills of writing large ones if they can't see how others have done it. — Richard Stallman

Functions that create values are easier to combine in new ways than functions that directly perform side effects — Marijn Haverbeke

I didn't have any writer friends in college. I was a computer science major, but I was writing a lot, probably more than anybody I knew. I started to submit novels to New York when I was a freshman in college. — Watt Key

In life sciences, we find a reasonable balance between men and women. In engineering and computer science, we have a major problem. A very small percentage of women will be in computer science. — Freeman A. Hrabowski III

Too few people in computer science are aware of some of the informational challenges in biology and their implications for the world. We can store an incredible amount of data very cheaply. — Sergey Brin

What is the central core of the subject [computer science]? What is it that distinguishes it from the separate subjects with which it is related? What is the linking thread which gathers these disparate branches into a single discipline. My answer to these questions is simple -it is the art of programming a computer. It is the art of designing efficient and elegant methods of getting a computer to solve problems, theoretical or practical, small or large, simple or complex. It is the art of translating this design into an effective and accurate computer program. — Tony Hoare

Science, is the creation by humans of a particular paradigm and methodology for discovering truth and understanding reality. Hence it can never fully reflect the hidden face of humanity, its creator, in the same sense that a computer can never become fully human or know what it means to be human: however sophisticated, these machines will forever remain mere artifacts of humanity. — Stephen A. Diamond

The truth is that computer science is not really about the computer. It is just a tool to help you see ideas more clearly. — Carlos Bueno

A fashionable idea in technical circles is that quantity not only turns into quality at some extreme of scale, but also does so according to principles we already understand. Some of my colleagues think a million, or perhaps a billion, fragmentary insults will eventually yield wisdom that surpasses that of any well-thought-out essay, so long as sophisticated secret statistical algorithms recombine the fragments. I disagree. A trope from the early days of computer science comes to mind: garbage in, garbage out. — Jaron Lanier

It has been said that the three great develpments in twentieth century science are relativity, quantum mechanics, and chaos. That strikes me the same as saying that the three great developments in twentith century engineering are the airplane, the computer, and the pop-top aluminum can. Chaos and fractals are not even twentieth century ideas: chaos was first observed by Poincare and fractals were familiar to Cantor a century ago, although neither man had the computer at his disposal to show the rest of the world the beauty he was seeing. — Robert L. Devaney

The burgeoning field of computer science has shifted our view of the physical world from that of a collection of interacting material particles to one of a seething network of information. In this way of looking at nature, the laws of physics are a form of software, or algorithm, while the material world-the hardware-plays the role of a gigantic computer. — Paul Davies

The spectacular thing about Johnny [von Neumann] was not his power as a mathematician, which was great, or his insight and his clarity, but his rapidity; he was very, very fast. And like the modern computer, which no longer bothers to retrieve the logarithm of 11 from its memory (but, instead, computes the logarithm of 11 each time it is needed), Johnny didn't bother to remember things. He computed them. You asked him a question, and if he didn't know the answer, he thought for three seconds and would produce and answer. — Paul R. Halmos

When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students. — Alan Perlis

Remember how quickly our field [computer science] changes. That's why you want to focus on learning things that don't change: how to work well with other people, how to carefully assess a client's real - as opposed to perceived - needs, and things like that. — Randy Pausch

When I was 19 years old, I wrote my first book. I took a computer science class, and the book was garbage. I thought I could write a better one, so I did. — Jim McKelvey

As a Facebook summer intern once told me, In my school's computer science department, there are more Daves than girls. — Sheryl Sandberg

One good thing about my computer: it never asks why. — Ashleigh Brilliant

Atlantis was a highly evolved civilization where the sciences and arts were far more advanced than one might guess. Atlantis was technologically advanced in genetic engineering, computer science, inter-dimensional physics, and artistically developed with electronic music and crystal art forms. — Frederick Lenz

The computer has evolved into a partner, a tool, and an environment
not just in science fiction, but in the public consciousness as well. Computers are no longer malevolent iron brains that manufacture tyrannical and oppressive answers; they are not a way to think, they are a place from which to think. The computer is an environment in which answers can be sought, created, manipulated and developed. — David Gerrold

I shopped at J. Crew in high school, I studied computer science. I was a nerd-nerd, now I'm a music-nerd. — Mayer Hawthorne

There's no point running anyway. In t-minus ten minutes, you will have no where to run to."

Quinn tensed at the triumphant look in his eyes. ". . .what have you done?"

"I have entered launch codes in the computer. In exactly ten minutes, Alpha Star 9 will be a black stain in the middle of Utah."

Quinn's lips part in shock.

"Yes," said. Dr. Zorgone in amusement. "Dramatic gasp! — Ash Gray

I have yet to see a career that is similar in benefit as computer science for doing the advanced exercises. — Frederick Lenz

Computer assisted proofs are getting better and better and computers will play a bigger and bigger role in the future. — Enrico Bombieri

Peter Thiel, one of the founders of PayPal, has launched a movement to convince people to not go to college.3 It's a waste of money. The return on investment isn't there anymore. School has gotten too expensive. . . If writing [computer] code is your deal and you're able to go to a trade school that enables you to write code, that's far better than a computer science degree from a four-year college or university that looks great on paper, but doesn't give you the skills you need when you graduate. — John Dearie

People tend to think that mathematicians always work in sterile conditions, sitting around and staring at the screen of a computer, or at a ceiling, in a pristine office. But in fact, some of the best ideas come when you least expect them, possibly through annoying industrial noise. — Edward Frenkel

A lot of the parallel processing software we're currently developing for supercomputers is tantric. — Frederick Lenz

If you are too lazy to cleanup your database after testing, your filesystem after testing or your memory based system consider moving to a different profession. This isn't a job for you. — Roy Osherove

She shrugged noncommittally. "Not bad."
Kyle scoffed. "Not bad? Counselor, there are two things I've got mad skills at: And computer science is the other one. — Julie James

Every weekend the drama department would have parties. The 20 hot girls on campus? All of them were in the drama dept. So we'd have somebody standing guard at the door to keep all the computer science guys out. We had to guard our women at all times. — Joe Manganiello

The storage capacity of the average human brain is two-hundred and fifty-six exabytes. However, the average adult human only uses approximately one billionth of that storage space effectively. This means my knowledge capacity is approximately three thousand trillion times that of your average human. — Michael Monroe

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians. They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn't been computer science, these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields. — Steve Jobs

[Computer science] is not really about computers and it's not about computers in the same sense that physics is not really about particle accelerators, and biology is not about microscopes and Petri dishes ... and geometry isn't really about using surveying instruments. — Hal Abelson

jQuery is by far the most widely used library for JavaScript. It is used on more than 50% of websites. Many frameworks, such as Backbone and Twitter's Bootstrap, are built on top of jQuery. Being able to extend and write plugins for jQuery can not only save lots of time, but also makes code much cleaner and easier to maintain. — Robert Duchnik

First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII - and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure. — Douglas Adams

Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer. — Alan Perlis

Why is computer science a good field for women? For one thing, that's where the jobs are, and for another, the pay is better than for many jobs, and finally, it's easier to combine career and family. — Madeleine M. Kunin

Computer Science is a science of abstraction -creating the right model for a problem and devising the appropriate mechanizable techniques to solve it. — Alfred Aho

If you think you're a really good programmer ... read Knuth's Art of Computer Programming ... You should definitely send me a resume if you can read the whole thing. — Bill Gates

The chaos and the confusion of all possible outcomes penetrated every pixel of computer generated light, and the waves of all sub-existential normality flooded by, creating an atmosphere of peaceful eventuality. I felt that a gradual restoration was in place, and that piece by piece, universes were being reformed and restored. — Joel Julian

When human beings acquired language, we learned not just how to listen but how to speak. When we gained literacy, we learned not just how to read but how to write. And as we move into an increasingly digital reality, we must learn not just how to use programs but how to make them. In the emerging highly programmed landscape ahead, you will either create the software or you will be the software. It's really that simple: Program, or be programmed. — Douglas Rushkoff

Just three or four decades ago, if you wanted to access a thousand core processors, you'd need to be the chairman of MIT's computer science department or the secretary of the US Defense Department. Today the average chip in your cell phone can perform about a billion calculations per second. Yet today has nothing on tomorrow. "By 2020, a chip with today's processing power will cost about a penny," CUNY theoretical physicist Michio Kaku explained in a recent article for Big Think,23 "which is the cost of scrap paper. . . . Children are going to look back and wonder how we could have possibly lived in such a meager world, much as when we think about how our own parents lacked the luxuries - cell phone, Internet - that we all seem to take for granted. — Peter H. Diamandis

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country ... I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this ... It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. — Steve Jobs

I majored in Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley and worked as a software developer for a couple of years. Then I taught high school computer science for over a decade and a half in Oakland, California. — Gene Luen Yang

The first law of computer science: Every problem is solved by yet another indirection. — Bjarne Stroustrup

He asked the class how many of us were taking computer science, and everybody but me and this one girl who didn't speak English raised their hands. — Ned Vizzini

I think actually if you take the analogy with other areas of engineering, and increasingly of science and even mathematics, you can see people do not have to learn the vast number of formulae they used to learn. Instead, they have to learn to use the computer effectively. This frees them, I feel, to understand concepts and the foundations while they're learning the mechanics of the application of the theory. — C.A.R. Hoare

There was one new metallic monstrosity stacked in one corner that she hadn't seen the last time she was a visitor to his strange chamber, it appeared to be a mass of hard drives all fused together, but they looked too sophisticated to be merely hard drives.
"What on earth is that?"
"That's my Kung Fu," he said proudly, patting the top of the futuristic-looking stack.
"Is that what you wanted to show me?"
"No, but it's impressive, isn't it?"
"If you say so."
Steves sighed and shook his head, so few people could appreciate the intellectual complexity of an almost untraceable hacking device. — E.A. Bucchianeri

If patterns of ones and zeroes were "like" patterns of human lives and deaths, if everything about an individual could be represented in a computer record by a long strings of ones and zeroes, then what kind of creature could be represented by a long string of lives and deaths? — Thomas Pynchon

Macroeconomics, even with all of our computers and with all of our information. is not an exact science and is incapable of being an exact science. — Paul Samuelson

Computer science only indicates the retrospective omnipotence of our technologies. In other words, an infinite capacity to process data (but only data
i.e. the already given) and in no sense a new vision. With that science, we are entering an era of exhaustivity, which is also an era of exhaustion. — Jean Baudrillard

I went to a school that's predominantly computer science and engineering. So, there's a real shortage of hot girls, let's say. — Joe Manganiello

Generating a system architecture is not a deterministic process. It requires careful consideration of business requirements, technology choices, existing infrastructure and systems, and actual physical resources, such as budget and manpower. — Andrew Holdsworth

Livingston: Why did users like Viaweb? Graham: I think the main thing was that it was easy. Practically all the software in the world is either broken or very difficult to use. So users dread software. They've been trained that whenever they try to install something, or even fill out a form online, it's not going to work. I dread installing stuff, and I have a PhD in computer science. So if you're writing applications for end users, you have to remember that you're writing for an audience that has been traumatized by bad experiences. We worked hard to make Viaweb as easy as it could possibly be, and we had this confidence-building online demo where we walked people through using the software. That was what got us all the users. — Jessica Livingston

Drs. Margolis and Fisher have done a great service to education, computer science, and the culture at large. Unlocking the Clubhouse should be required reading for anyone and everyone who is concerned about the decreasing rate of women studying computer science. — Anita Borg

I was never as focused in math, science, computer science, etcetera, as the people who were best at it. I wanted to create amazing screensavers that did beautiful visualizations of music. It's like, "Oh, I have to learn computer science to do that." — Kevin Systrom

DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created. — Bill Gates

If you seek to develop the mind fully, for the enlightenment process, you will benefit if your career is related to computer science, law, medicine, or the arts. — Frederick Lenz

Until Systers came into existence, the notion of a global 'community of women in computer science' did not exist. — Anita Borg

A library is a place to go for a reality check, a bracing dose of literature, or a "true reflection of our history," whether it's a brick-and-mortar building constructed a century ago or a fanciful arrangement of computer codes. The librarian is the organizer, the animating spirit behind it, and the navigator. Her job is to create order out of the confusion of the past, even as she enables us to blast into the future. — Marilyn Johnson

Post-Modernism was a reaction against Modernism. It came quite early to music and literature, and a little later to architecture. And I think it's still coming to computer science. — Larry Wall

Only in high school when I began programming computers, did I become interested in tech and start-ups, which led me to attend Stanford and major in Computer Science. — Clara Shih

I was on this path to becoming a computer-science guy, but I didn't like it. I got no joy from it. It was very, very scary. It was suffocating to think that I was just going to do this thing for the rest of my life. — Kumail Nanjiani

I was lucky to get into computers when it was a very young and idealistic industry. There weren't many degrees offered in computer science, so people in computers were brilliant people from mathematics, physics, music, zoology, whatever. They loved it, and no one was really in it for the money. — Steve Jobs

The most advanced computer science programs in the world, and over the course of the Computer Center's life, thousands of students passed — Malcolm Gladwell

I've never believed that they're separate. Leonardo da Vinci was a great artist and a great scientist. Michelangelo knew a tremendous amount about how to cut stone at the quarry. The finest dozen computer scientists I know are all musicians. Some are better than others, but they all consider that an important part of their life. I don't believe that the best people in any of these fields see themselves as one branch of a forked tree. I just don't see that.People bring these things together a lot. Dr. Land at Polaroid said, "I want Polaroid to stand at the intersection of art and science," and I've never forgotten that. I think that that's possible, and I think a lot of people have tried. — Steve Jobs

It is hardly surprising that children should enthusiastically start their education at an early age with the Absolute Knowledge of computer science; while they are unable to read, for reading demands making judgments at every line. Conversation is almost dead, and soon so too will be those who knew how to speak. — Guy Debord

Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter. — Eric Raymond

I always knew I wanted to be a technologist, so I went to Duke and got a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. Really, I thought my goal in life was to be an inventor, a problem solver, so I thought I needed a Ph.D. to be good at inventions, but it turns out that you don't. — Aaron Patzer

I try to learn certain areas of computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don't have time for such study. — Donald Knuth

meantime, here is a list of degrees for five of the nerdiest writers: J. STEWART BURNS BS Mathematics, Harvard University MS Mathematics, UC Berkeley DAVID S. COHEN BS Physics, Harvard University MS Computer Science, UC Berkeley AL JEAN BS Mathematics, Harvard University KEN KEELER BS Applied Mathematics, Harvard University PhD Applied Mathematics, Harvard University JEFF WESTBROOK BS Physics, Harvard University PhD Computer Science, Princeton University — Simon Singh

Every time you use a GPS device, a computer, or a cell phone, you're reaping the benefits of science. In fact, most of us regularly trust our very lives to science: when you have an operation, when you fly in an airplane, when you get your children vaccinated. If you were diagnosed with diabetes, would you go to the doctor or consult a spiritual healer? — Jerry A. Coyne

the mind is a neural computer — Steven Pinker

The mind is like a computer. It runs programs. Most of the software has been poorly written. It is written in the language of fear. — Frederick Lenz

Remember, though, that debugging is as much art as it is computer science [..] — Michael A. Vine

Progress in computer science is made with the distribution of revolutionary software systems and the publication of revolutionary books. We don't need a fancy information system to alert us to these grand events; they will hit us in the face. Another good excuse for ignoring the literature is that, since everyone has strong beliefs about fundamentals but can't support those beliefs rationally or consistently convince non-believers, computer science is actually a religion. — Philip Greenspun

Throughout my academic career, I'd given some pretty good talks. But being considered the best speaker in the computer science department is like being known as the tallest of the Seven Dwarfs. — Randy Pausch

For years, computer scientists were treating operating systems design as sort of an open-reserch issue, when the field's direction had been decided by commercial operations. Computer science has become completely cut off from reality. — David Gelernter

This is a global fight to get the right people in the right place and we're talking about people with PhDs in engineering, computer science, mathematics. — Jerry Moran

The issues involved are sufficiently important that courses are now moving out of the philosophy departments and into mainstream computer science. And they affect everyone. Many of the students attracted to these courses are not technology majors, and many of the topics we discuss relate to ethical challenges that transcend the computer world. — D. Michael Quinn

Now the reason that we think computer science is about computers is pretty much the same reason that the Egyptians thought geometry was about surveying instruments: when some field is just getting started and you don't really understand it very well, it's very easy to confuse the essence of what you're doing with the tools that you use. — Hal Abelson

An algorithm must be seen to be believed. — Donald Ervin Knuth

Reusability is key in reducing bugs and coding quickly. The more I use a piece of code, the more confident and familiar I become with it, which in turn significantly speeds up my development time. — Robert Duchnik

When the ANSI C standard was under development, the pragma directive was introduced. Borrowed from Ada, #pragma is used to convey hints to the compiler, such as the desire to expand a particular function in-line or suppress range checks. Not previously seen in C, pragma met with some initial resistance from a gcc implementor, who took the "implementation-defined" effect very literally - in gcc version 1.34, the use of pragma causes the compiler to stop compiling and launch a computer game instead! The gcc manual contained the following: The "#pragma" command is specified in the ANSI standard to have an arbitrary implementation-defined effect. In the GNU C preprocessor, "#pragma" first attempts to run the game "rogue"; if that fails, it tries to run the game "hack"; if that fails, it tries to run GNU Emacs displaying the Tower of Hanoi; if that fails, it reports a fatal error. In any case, preprocessing does not continue. - Manual for version 1.34 of the GNU C compiler — Peter Van Der Linden

C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success. — Dennis M. Ritchie

Astronomy is so easy to love ... Fairly or not, physics is associated with nuclear bombs and nuclear waste, chemistry with pesticides, biology with Frankenfood and designer-gene superbabies. But astronomers are like responsible ecotourists, squinting at the scenery through high-quality optical devices, taking nothing but images that may be computer-enhanced for public distribution, leaving nothing but a few Land Rover footprints on faraway Martian soil, and OK, OK, maybe the Land Rover, too. — Natalie Angier