To iterate is human; to recurse, divine.
-- L. Peter Deutsch

APL is a write-only language. (I can write programs in APL, but I can't read any of them.)
- Roy Keir, University of Utah, 1973.

On a clear disk you can seek forever.
-- Jeff Mischkinsky

An engineer is someone who does list processing in FORTRAN
- V. Michael Powers, Naval Postgraduate School

“There is great disorder under heaven.  The situation is excellent.”
Chairman Mao, quoted in The Economist, March 20, p. 10

Evidently Mao spent some of this years as a project manager….

Question : Is Windows a virus?
 
No, Windows is not a virus. Here's what viruses do:
  1. They replicate quickly - okay, Windows does that.
  2. Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as  they do so - okay, Windows does that.
 
  3. Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk - okay,
Windows  does that too.
 
  4. Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with
valuable  programs and systems. Sigh... Windows does that, too.
 
  5. Viruses will occasionally make the user suspect their system is too  slow (see 2) and the user will buy new hardware. Yup, that's with  Windows, too.
 
Until now it seems Windows is a virus but there are fundamental
differences: Viruses are well supported by their authors, are running on most systems, their program code is fast, compact and efficient and they tend to become more sophisticated as they mature.
 
So Windows is not a virus.
 
It's a bug.

What's the Object-Oriented way of becoming wealthy? Inheritance.

A guy and girl are sitting next to each other in a programming course. In the middle of the lecture, they start chatting, and really hit it off. Afterwards, she goes up to the professor to ask a question. When she gets back, she find the guy rummaging through her purse. "What the hell are you doing!? That's private!!" "But I thought we were in the same class!

"The C Programming Language - A language which combines the flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly
language."

PROGRAM - n.    - A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages.
v. tr.- To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward.

"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

"The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable pi can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant.  This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change."
        -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox computers

"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense."     -- E. W. Dijkstra

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that [sic] have had prior exposure to BASIC; as potential programmers  they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."        -- Dijkstra

"A system admin's life is a sorry one.  The only advantage he has over Emergency Room doctors is that malpractice suits are rare.  On the other hand, ER doctors never have to deal with patients installing new versions of their own innards!"

My best memos ever

At a staff meeting this am, a synergistic discussion led to our best idea ever!  Notice how production has become operations, tech support is ops, sales is ops, marketing is ops, everything is ops.  Thus, it must be only a matter of time before IT becomes part of operations!

We want to get ahead of the curve and proactively become part of ops.  Given our traditionally low profile we decided that it seems only appropriate that we become known as Covert Ops.  We want to be known as "Black Ops" operating under the motto: "Run silent, run deep."  (Given that one other name for black ops is the "wet department" it all sort of fits.)

Given that we are geeks, we'll need the help of marketing to reposition and rebrand ourselves with all the crucial projects: t-shirts, coffee mugs, mouse pads and the like.  We see many possibilities for logo placement, ball caps and co-marketing with departments cooler than us.  Perhaps Mark Stewart's group (they're known now as "Ops Ops" aren't they?) can get us some part numbers.  After all, the CIA gift shop does have this sort of thing (with some of the items imported from China).

Of course this will have to operate within the "look and feel" set out by marketing.  This should be easy, isn't that semi-transparent version of cartwheel man sort of a stealth image?

I certainly don't want to take the blame, er. credit for this idea and have to acknowledge the contributions of the entire applications systems staff, every single one of them.  You know who you are.

This all comes at an opportune time, like all great ideas.  The April 2002 issue of CIO Perspectives magazine has an article on branding of IT departments.  Sure, it blew up in the face of both companies that tried it, but why should we let our vision be limited by that?