Ken Thompson quotes

#1

Post by tosh » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 9:59 AM UTC

Re: Ken Thompson quotes

#2

Post by denzil_correa » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 11:46 AM UTC

> I must say the Linux community is a lot nicer than the Unix community. A negative comment on Unix would warrent death threats. With Linux, it is like stirring up a nest of butterflies.

Interesting comment on the Linux, UNIX communities.

Re: Ken Thompson quotes

#3

Post by gruturo » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 11:46 AM UTC

Took me a few moments of frantic checking the linked article, plus Google, to make sure this wasn't an obituary.

Re: Ken Thompson quotes

#4

Post by ldmosquera » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 11:53 AM UTC

gruturo wrote: post #3

Took me a few moments of frantic checking the linked article, plus Google, to make sure this wasn't an obituary.

Same O_O

Re: Ken Thompson quotes

#5

Post by dorfsmay » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 12:14 PM UTC

This was a huge surprise for me, making me experience a cognitive dissonance.

> I am a very bottom-up thinker. If you give me the right kind of Tinker Toys

I am a boitom-up thinker, I cannot imagine a house if I don't know about what kind of bricks exist, which we use and why!

I have blamed that trait for the main reason for stagnating in my carreer while idealising people like Thompson, due to their achievements.

Re: Ken Thompson quotes

#6

Post by Sacho » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 12:28 PM UTC

dorfsmay wrote: post #5

This was a huge surprise for me, making me experience a cognitive dissonance. > I am a very bottom-up thinker. If you give me the right kind of Tinker Toys I am a boitom-up thinker, I cannot imagine a house if I don't know about what kind of bricks exist, which we use and why! I have blamed that trait for the main reason for stagnating in my carreer while idealising people like Thompson, due to their achievements.

Huh, I feel exactly the same way. I've never been employed in a position where the bottom-up approach was the one people were actually looking for, so I've always felt guilty about my work ethic - I feel like I'm satisfying my own curiosity on company time.

Re: Ken Thompson quotes

#7

Post by enriquto » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 12:34 PM UTC

gruturo wrote: post #3

Took me a few moments of frantic checking the linked article, plus Google, to make sure this wasn't an obituary.

what a tasteless comment, really

Re: Ken Thompson quotes

#8

Post by petercooper » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 12:36 PM UTC

If you like this sort of thing, we've been running a Twitter account for several years dedicated to pithy programming related quotes: https://twitter.com/codewisdom

Re: Ken Thompson quotes

#9

Post by scriptproof » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 12:42 PM UTC

> I think the open software movement (and Linux in particular) is laudable.

Re: Ken Thompson quotes

#10

Post by dm319 » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 12:46 PM UTC

Some gems:

> "I've seen [visual] editors like that, but I don't feel a need for them. I don't want to see the state of the file when I'm editing."

-Thompson on the superiority of ed to editors such as today's vi or emacs, as summarized by Peter Salus in A Quarter Century of UNIX (Addison-Wesley, 1994).

> The X server has to be the biggest program I've ever seen that doesn't do anything for you.

and I'm glad linux has come to meet his expectations over the years...

> Microsoft is really unreliable but Linux is worse. In a non-PC environment, it just won't hold up. If you're using it on a single box, that's one thing. But if you want to use Linux in firewalls, gateways, embedded systems, and so on, it has a long way to go.

-1999

>I run Linux. And I occasionally look at code, but rarely, so I can't really tell whether the quality has gotten better or not [since 1999]. But certainly the reliability has gotten better.

-2009