Saying you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide
is like saying you don't care about free speech because you have
nothing to say.                            -- The Juice Media (2016)
---- privacy,society
One is less than two, even for large values of one.
---- math,geek
It's well known that time is money and knowledge is power. On the other hand,
we know that power equals work/time. Putting this together we end up with
	money = time = work/power = work/knowledge.
In particular, money approaches infinity as knowledge goes to zero.
---- math,society
Recursion n.:
        See Recursion.
                -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary
---- math,self-reference
The best defense against logic is ignorance.
---- math,geek,logic
A mathematician named Klein
Thought the Mobius band was divine.
	Said he, "If you glue
	The edges of two,
You'll get a weird bottle like mine!
---- math,limerick
Of course, the development space is neither three-dimensional nor
euclidian.                               -- Linus Torvalds (2006)
---- math,vcs,programming
Math is hard, lets go shopping  -- Barbie
---- math
If you open any random box nobody was looking into, chances are you'll
find a dead cat there.                         -- Yossi Kreinin (2010)
---- math,physics
Reiser4 refuses to mount unless supplied with the homotopy group of
the tangent bundle of hard drive, for sure.
                                           -- Nikita Danilov (2004)
---- math,filesystem,linux
There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind
you make up.                                       -- Archie Goodwin
---- math,society
On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it that this question is using
binary?                                                 -- XKCD 953
---- math,geek
Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.
---- work
[X] <---- nail here for a new monitor
---- hardware
The only person who always got his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe
---- pun
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.
---- latin
Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it.
Geniuses remove it.     -- Perlis's Programming Proverb #58 (1982)
---- programming,society
They laughed at Galileo.  They laughed at Copernicus.  They laughed
at Columbus. But remember, they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
---- society
> Remember, there's no "I" in "Team".
No, but there's a "U" in "people who apparently don't understand the
relationship between orthography and meaning".          -- xkcd 1562
---- pun,society
Don't criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes, that
way when you criticize him you're a mile away and have his shoes.
                                                            -- Anon
---- society
Look: MY part of the Titanic is rising.
---- society
if you really want this, then you should look at your walls and
double-check that they are nice and softly padded.
                                       -- Linus Torvalds (2009)
---- society
Hard data has a nasty habit of busting assumptions.  -- Dave Chinner (2014)
---- logic,technology
After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.
---- society
How come everyone's going so slow if it's called rush hour?
---- pun
Great minds think alike, but fools rarely differ.
---- pun
Better stay silent and look stupid than open your mouth and leave no
doubt about it.                                    -- French proverb
---- society
A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five.
---- pun
Fast, cheap, good. Pick two.
---- society
I don't mean to go all language nerd on you, but I just legit adverbed
"legit", verbed "adverb", and adjectived "language nerd".
                                                   -- xkcd 1443 (2014)
---- language,geek
Life in plastic, it's fantastic.
                       -- Barbie
---- pun
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
---- society
Did I mention my belief in the true meaning of "intelligence"?
Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet get the work done.
                                                     --  Linus Torvalds
---- society
The wheel was invented by someone overthinking "pushing". -- xkcd 1592
---- pun,technology
It wouldn’t be so bad if only morning didn’t come so early.
                                     --  Sheila Moss (2004)
---- society
Given enough trust, pigs fly just nice.
---- pun
Fashion is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to
alter it every six months.                            -- Oscar Wilde
---- fashion,society
Any computer with a mouse is worthless. -- Wombat's Law
---- comp,gui
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are.
---- comp,unix
Press any key to continue or any other key to quit.
---- comp
If it doesn't run Unix, forget it. -- Wombat's Law
---- comp,unix
Hiroshima '45 - Chernobyl '86 - Windows '95
---- comp,windows
This is hand-driven virus -- please delete all files from your
hard drive manually.
---- comp
The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably
the day they start making vacuum cleaners.
---- comp,microsoft
Friend's don't ask friends to open Microsoft Documents.
---- comp,microsoft
Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as
kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic
pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.
                           -- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
---- comp
He died at the console, Of hunger and thirst.
Next day he was buried, Face down, nine-edge first.
And the last bug in sight, An ant passing by,
Saluted his tombstone, And whispered, "Nice try." -- GNU Humor Collection
---- comp
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
---- comp,www
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
                  -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
---- comp,unix
Bad taste in programming?  Just about everything that inflicts a GUI
interface without a scriptable command-line equivalent.
                                                   -- NRArnot (2007)
---- comp,gui
When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just
stare at you blankly and say 'Hey, I got those with the system,
*for free*'.                              -- Linus Torvalds (1995)
---- comp,windows
Novice Users: People who are afraid that simply pressing a key might break
their computer. Intermediate Users: People who don't know how to fix their
computer after pressing a key that broke it. Expert Users: People who break
other people's computers.
---- comp
Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it.
---- comp,gui
In January of 2009 we had our first tech support call where the new
user needed to be told, "Well, have you tried turning it on?" We
consider this a huge road sign on our path to becoming a mainstream
computer company.                        -- http://www.zareason.com
---- comp
login: yes
password: I don't know, please tell me
password is incorrect
login: yes
password: incorrect
---- comp,unix
My life's project is to hunt down the guy who invented mail client
wordwrapping, set him on fire then dance on his ashes.
                                           -- Andrew Morton (2009)
---- comp,mail
I've never felt it worth my time to work out the magic voodoo to get
page numbers in Word. I just write them on by hand afterwards.
                                                       -- epa (2009)
---- comp,microsoft
Bicrement: Adding 2 to a variable.
  -- New Programming Jargon (2010)
---- comp,programming,geek
Hindenbug: A catastrophic data-destroying bug.
              -- New Programming Jargon (2010)
---- comp,programming,geek
Happy filesystems are all alike, but every corrupted filesystem is
unhappy in its own way.                  -- Jonathan Corbet (2011)
---- comp,filesystem
Your users do not "love" your software. Your users are temporarily
tolerating your software because it's the least horrible option
they have.                                       -- aklaver (2012)
---- comp,software
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at
kick boxing.                                     -- Emo Philips
---- comp
The best way to accelerate your Windows-PC is at 9.81 m/s^2 out of the window.
---- comp,windows
World war III will be faught on the command line.
---- comp,geek
The user is a peripheral that types when you issue a read request.
                                                    –- P. Williams
---- comp,geek
Who the heck is General Failure, and why is he reading my harddisk?
---- comp
Why do geeks get Halloween and Christmas confused?
Because 31 oct = 25 dec
---- comp,geek
VI VI VI -- The editor of the beast.
---- comp,vi
God IS real, unless declared integer.
---- programming,pun
Your today's smiley: /bin/sh> :() { :& :& } ; :
---- programming,geek,shell
First off, I'd suggest printing out a copy of the GNU coding standards,
and NOT read it. Burn them, it's a great symbolic gesture.
                                     -- linux/Documentation/CodingStyle
---- programming,open source
Tabs are 8 characters, and thus indentations are also 8 characters.
There are heretic movements that try to make indentations 4 (or
even 2!)  characters deep, and that is akin to trying to define the
value of PI to be 3.             -- linux/Documentation/CodingStyle
---- programming
Apply Stevens to offender's cranium until something gives; if it's the
book, replace with fresh copy and repeat.            -- Al Viro (2003)
---- programming,unix,geek
Never _ever_ make your source-code look worse because your tools suck.
                                              -- Linus Torvalds (2003)
---- programming
Use lower case l to indicate long constants. e.g. 10l is more likely to be
mistaken for 101 that 10L is.
                          -- Roedy Green: How To Write Unmaintainable Code
---- programming,C
Make sure that every method does a little bit more (or less) than
its name suggests. As a simple example, a method named isValid(x)
should as a side effect convert x to binary and store the result in
a database.        -- Roedy Green: How To Write Unmaintainable Code
---- programming
Nothing can kill a maintenance engineer faster than a well planned
Hungarian Notation attack.
                  -- Roedy Green: How To Write Unmaintainable Code
---- programming
I'll Take a Dozen: Never use one housekeeping variable when you could
just as easily use two or three.
                     -- Roedy Green: How To Write Unmaintainable Code
---- programming
The Nested Switch is the most difficult type of nesting for the human
mind to unravel.     -- Roedy Green: How To Write Unmaintainable Code
---- programming,C
If you have a deeply nested mixture of if/else statements and blocks,
especially with misleading indentation, you can trip up even an expert
maintenance programmer.
                      -- Roedy Green: How To Write Unmaintainable Code
---- programming,geek
If you need several variables of a given type, just define an array
of them, then access them by number. Pick a numbering convention that
only you know and don't document it.
                     -- Roedy Green: How To Write Unmaintainable Code
---- programming
No Skill Required: You don't need great skill to write unmaintainable code.
Just leap in and start coding. Keep in mind that management still measures
productivity in lines of code even if you have to delete most of it later.
                          -- Roedy Green: How To Write Unmaintainable Code
---- programming
Make sure that your program cannot possibly compile with any of the
compiler error checking diagnostics enabled.
                   -- Roedy Green: How To Write Unmaintainable Code
---- programming
If you discover a bug in your compiler or interpreter, be sure to make that
behaviour essential for your code to work properly.
                           -- Roedy Green: How To Write Unmaintainable Code
---- programming
Buy a copy of a baby naming book and you'll never be at a loss for
variable names.   -- Roedy Green: How To Write Unmaintainable Code
---- programming
Use constant names like LancelotsFavouriteColour instead of blue and
assign it hex value of $0204FB. If a maintenance programmer can't quote
entire Monty Python movies from memory, he or she has no  business
being a programmer. -- Roedy Green: How to write unmaintainable code
---- programming
Choosing The Best Overload Operator: Stroustroup can use the shift
operator to do I/O, why should you not be equally creative?
                  -- Roedy Green: How to write unmaintainable code
---- programming,C++
Through clever use of defines and ifdefs, a master of obfuscation
can make header files declare different things depending on how many
times they are included.
                  -- Roedy Green: How to write unmaintainable code
---- programming,C
Cut and paste should be a federal crime. -- Steven Rostedt (2012)
---- programming,gui
I personally hate Yoda code ("Null the pointer is not, young Jedi").
                                                -- Jörn Engel (2006)
---- programming,geek
The reason people have trouble wrapping their heads around git is
because they have been braindamaged by CVS and SVN, and just don't
understand the fairly fundamental new concepts and workflow.
                                          -- Linus Torvalds (2006)
---- programming,vcs
Maybe "perl -pi -%££@$" will do it. And if not, just add random
characters until it works. "It's the perl way".
                                       -- Linus Torvalds (2007)
---- programming,perl
Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to
work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that
is a universal interface.                         -- Doug MacIlroy
---- programming,unix,history
Open source is driven by coders, not by dreamers who want to offload
the work of implementing their whacky ideas to other people instead of
getting their ass up and doing it themselves.    -- Adrian Bunk (2007)
---- programming,open source
The funny thing is that all those people that want their favourite
software to be rewritten in their favourite programming language
always wants someone else to rewrite it for them.
                                        -- Andreas Ericsson (2007)
---- programming,language
Don't look at the structure being passed or biarch issues caused
by it unless you want to take the second look at your dinner.
                                               -- Al Viro (2013)
---- programming,C,geek
It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.
                                                 -- Alan J. Perlis (1982)
---- programming,society
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming,
is not worth knowing.                      -- Alan J. Perlis (1982)
---- programming,education,language
We should stop using CPP, which is the outdated tech of the sixties. We
should go with the new wave of the seventies and use this shiny new
"C" language that's all the rage with features like type checking
and stuff.                                        -- Ingo Molnar (2008)
---- programming,C
Have you ever noticed the difference between a 'C' project plan,
and a C++ project plan? The planning stage for a C++ project is three
times as long. Precisely to make sure that everything which should be
inherited is, and what shouldn't isn't. Then, they still get it wrong.
                                          -- fake Stroustrup interview
---- programming,C,C++
Doing "unsigned i;" is an act of insane vandalism, punishable by
spending five additional years coding in fortran.
                                         -- Andrew Morton (2008)
---- programming,C,language
Looking through foo_ioctl() instances is a wonderful way to lower pH
in stomach.                                        -- Al Viro (2009)
---- programming,geek,biology
Static typing errors can be detected during compilation and need not
wait until execution time. Any language which passes the burden of
this mechanical process on to the programmer is one where programs
will have numerous latent bugs.              -- Keith Packard (2009)
---- programming,language
10. It's impossible to get wrong. This ideal is represented by the
dwim() (Do What I Mean) function, where misuse means the implementation
has a bug.                                       -- Rusty Russel (2008)
---- programming,language
Code is more like poetry: change this line, and now the next line
doesn't rhyme, or you've broken the rhythm, or you've put angry words
into a happy poem, that sort of trouble.      -- Yossi Kreinin (2008)
---- programming
You can tell a "good" programmer from a "bad" one by their attitude
towards redundancy and dependencies. The good ones hate them, the
bad ones don't care.                        -- Yossi Kreinin (2010)
---- programming,society
[C++] has those many complementary defects amplifying each other
and this awful smug, misguided culture that eats the brains of the
brightest, turning them into cannibalistic template metaprogramming
zombies.                                    -- Yossi Kreinin (2010)
---- programming,C++,society
Using C instead of C++ has several practical benefits: faster
development cycle, reduced complexity, better support by tools such
as debuggers, higher portability and interoperability. When C++ is an
option, C is probably a better option.               -- Yossi Kreinin
---- programming,C,C++
Exceptions are concessions to the fact that most programmers are
incapable of dealing with the environments in which their functions
operate, incapable of designing their programs in terms of small
interfaces, and incapable of documenting those interfaces.
                                                   -- arakyd (2009)
---- programming,language,geek,offfensive
When the comments do not match the code, they probably are both wrong.
                                              -- Steven Rostedt (2011)
---- programming
Creating a perfect API is like committing the perfect crime. There
are at least fifty things that can go wrong, and if you are a genius,
you might be able to anticipate twenty-five of them.
---- programming
It seems that every decade has its own fashionable Unix scripting language.
The original scripting language, used in the 1970's was sed.  But awk became
the fashionable language in the 1980's, then perl in the 1990's, and now python
in the 2000's.  Who knows what will be next?          -- Matthew Szudzik (2009)
---- programming,language,perl,python
Personally I've avoided C bitfields like the plague in any code
I've written.                            -- David Miller (2012)
---- programming,C
One thing I learned was never trust the BIOS, even if you wrote it.
                                            -- Andre Hedrick (2003)
---- programming,hardware
Please find large crayon and write on forehead "when fixing a bug,
be sure to describe the end-user impact of that bug".
                                           -- Andrew Morton (2012)
---- programming
Programming is not just an act of telling a computer what to do:
it is also an act of telling other programmers what you wished the
computer to do.                            -- Andrew Morton (2012)
---- programming,society
C++ provides you with half the tools you need to write good generic
data structures and all the rope you need to hang yourself while
chasing that pipe dream.                     -- liljencrantz (2012)
---- programming,C++
We wield regular expressions like weapons. To the uninitiated,
even the most innocuous regex looks like the result of nauseous
keyboard. To us, however, it's pure poetry.
                              -- Veteran Unix admin trait No. 3
---- programming,geek,society
I find it very strange that CS programs emphasize writing code. Skill
at reading code is much harder to acquire, and more valuable.
                                                        -- njs (2011)
---- programming,society,education
If you write interfaces with more than 4 or 5 function arguments,
it's possible that you and I cannot be friends.
                                           -- David Miller (2015)
---- programming,society
Many in truth stagnate yet in the Desert of Delay, or linger ever in
the ghastly limbo called Perpetual Beta.           -- The Loginataka
---- programming
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be
a violent psychopath who knows where you live.    -- Martin Golding
---- programming,society
Deleted code is debugged code. -- Jeff Sickel
---- programming
The point of sending patches is that it's the best way to ask questions
about the code because it first requires the patch submitter to think
about the change and to document the reasons for making it. Many,
many questions are answered in the process of making a change and
writing a decent commit message.                 -- Dave Chinner (2015)
---- programming,vcs
It's like someone took a transcript of a couple arguing at Ikea and
made random edits until it compiled without errors.
                                                -- xkcd 1513 (2015)
---- programming
It's like a salad recipe written by a corporate lawyer using a phone
autocorrect that only knew excel formulas.       -- xkcd 1513 (2015)
---- programming
If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
---- programming
If a reviewer's comment doesn't result in a code change then it should
result in a changelog fix or a code comment.  Because if the code
wasn't clear enough to the reviewer then it won't be clear enough to
later readers.                                 -- Andrew Morton (2010)
---- programming,vcs
We don't plan for "future" development other than a single patch
series, as we have no idea what that development is, nor if it will
really happen.                         -- Greg Kroah-Hartman (2015)
---- programming,vcs
Writing code is often quite a small part of a developer's job, and
the more experienced the developer, the smaller that proportion.
                                             -- Simon Geard (2016)
---- programming
Extremely productive developers don’t have supernatural coding
skills; their secret is to write only the code that matters.
                                      -- Peter Hutterer (2016)
---- programming
All talk about "enough eyes" isn't worth much when the readers of
code in question feel like ripping their eyes out...
                                                -- Al Viro (2016)
---- programming,geek
Any question which a reviewer asks should be viewed as a defect in
the patch. The patch isn't finished until people can read it without
having questions.                            -- Andrew Morton (2014)
---- programming,development
If more people treated review as a selfless act that should be returned
in kind, then we wouldn't have a review bottleneck like we do...
                                                 -- Dave Chinner (2016)
---- programming,development
And I would *STRONGLY* recommend to stay away from drivers/staging
while you are learning C - it's like trying to use a public restroom
wall as a sex-ed textbook.                         -- Al Viro (2016)
---- programming,linux
Your lucky number of the day: 0f f0 c7 c8
---- comp,geek,history
Windows: Brought to you by the makers of Edlin!
---- comp,windows,history,geek
WYSIWYG is a step backwards. Human labor is used to do what computer can
do better.
---- comp,gui
> Just say, in unambigous words, what kind of patch you would accept, if any.
.procmailrc one would do nicely.                            -- Al Viro (2001)
---- comp,geek,unix
For extra privacy that message had been twice encrypted with ROT13
---- comp
Userspace is just a load test for the kernel.          -- Greg KH (2003)
---- comp,linux,geek
ln -s /usr/src/linux/.config .signature
                -- Andrew Morton (2004)
---- comp,linux,geek,mail
All software sucks, be it open-source of proprietary. The only question
is what can be done with particular instance of suckage, and that's
where having the source matters.                      -- Al Viro (2004)
---- comp,programming,open source
If it is considered harmful, don't call it a goto, call it "Hyperlink".
---- comp,www,geek,programming
Of course, the rules _do_ matter in the sense that there has to be some point
to the consistency. You can have a consistent rule that "the ChangeLog entries
must rhyme", and I think it's a great rule, and I encourage anybody who wants
to to set up such a "rhyming kernel tree", but that doesn't mean that it makes
a lot of difference to people ;).                     -- Linus Torvalds (2005)
---- comp,geek,vcs
You don't exist. Go away!::
    The passwd(5) gecos field couldn't be read
Your parents must have hated you!::
    The password(5) gecos field is longer than a giant static buffer.
Your sysadmin must hate you!::
    The password(5) name field is longer than a giant static buffer.
                                              -- git-var.txt(2005-10)
---- comp,unix,programming
Real men never define acronyms; they understand them genetically.
                 -- Roedy Green: How To Write Unmaintainable Code
---- comp,programming,biology
Linux became only possible because 20 years of OS research was
carefully studied, analyzed, discussed and thrown away.
                                         -- Ingo Molnar (1999)
---- comp,linux
Really good taste would be a GUI interface that generated command lines
where you could see them (and scroll, edit and re-execute them). Then
the GUI would become a learning tool rather than a barrier to learning.
                                                      -- NRArnot (2007)
---- comp,gui
We wire a copy of it up to the email lists so that it autonags
patch-senders over the usual trivial junk.  Think of it as an
akpm-over-SMTP server.                          -- akpm (2007)
---- comp,mail,geek,programming,vcs
The only way to guarantee no regressions is to make no progress.
                                        -- Linus Torvalds (2007)
---- comp,programming
Distributed history isn't one-dimensional. You *cannot* linearize it
as some one-dimensional time. Impossible. Any system that tries is
broken. Fundamentally.                      -- Linus Torvalds (2007)
---- comp,vcs
When in doubt, use brute force.  -- Ken Thompson
---- comp,history,unix
MacOS: It could be worse but it'll take time.
---- comp,apple
MacOS: Putting new limits on productivity.
---- comp,apple
Rules of Optimization:
Rule 1: Don't do it.
Rule 2 (for experts only): Don't do it yet.
                            -- M.A. Jackson
---- comp,programming
If you know what you are doing, three layers is enough; if you don't
even seventeen levels won't help.                  -- Mike Padlipsky
---- comp,programming,geek
It's only about 1000 lines of perl, so what can go wrong in that?
---- comp,programming,perl
Producing canonical file names for Windows operating systems is
extremely complex and beyond the scope of this standard. The best
advice is to try to avoid making decisions based on a path, directory,
or file name.                                   -- www.cert.org (2008)
---- comp,windows,filesystem
Optimization hinders evolution.            -- Alan J. Perlis (1982)
---- comp
In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
                                           -- Alan J. Perlis (1982)
---- comp
Purely applicative languages are poorly applicable. -- Alan J. Perlis (1982)
---- comp,geek,programming
Editing is a rewording activity. -- Alan J. Perlis (1982)
---- comp,pun
The key point is that by using proprietary formats/interfaces, EVERY
time you want to switch to another program, you pay huge costs. In
contrast, using open standards, the switching cost is tiny (ideally
zero). Which is why proprietary formats and interfaces subvert the
usual role of competition.                 -- dwheeler on lwn (2008)
---- comp,open source
The DRM enforcement regime requires that the user be prevented from
understanding how their own computer works.    -- tialaramex (2009)
---- comp,open source
I'd rather write programs that write programs, than write programs.
                                                   -- Richard Sites
---- comp,geek,programming
Crying that it's an application bug is like crying over the speed
of light.                                -- Linus Torvalds (2009)
---- comp,programming,geek
Really, that performance is so bad that I'm beginning to wonder if I
am somehow measuring something wrong. How could they ship something
so crappy through so many versions?
      -- Jeff King on the Solaris system regex implementation (2009)
---- comp,solaris,geek
Pretty much any time you're executing BIOS code you're going to have
*some* platform which has severe memory corruption somewhere.
                                            -- H. Peter Anvin (2009)
---- comp,geek
Every closed driver I had access to was an utter piece of rubbish so
far, and you'll need the code to prove otherwise.
                                         -- Christoph Hellwig (2009)
---- comp,open source
It is too bad that the speed of light hasn't kept pace with the
changes in CPU speed and network bandwidth.
                                      -- <wietse@porcupine.org>
---- comp,hardware
If you know what you're doing, you can get full value for your
money. If you don't know what you're doing, you can spend just as
much and get little more value than the raw disks in the box. There
is no substitute for competence.                      -- ncm (2009)
---- comp,hardware
> When you start editing a file, it tells you who else has it open.
Wow. I can almost hear the punch card reader in the background.
                                                  -- tutufan (2009)
---- comp,vcs,geek
CONTENT (of a piece of Mail)
      It's text.
           -- RFC 524 (1973)
---- comp,mail,pun
Configuration Programmer: Someone that says they are a programmer but
only knows how to hack at configuration files of some other pieces
of software configuration to make them do what they want.
                                     -- New Programming Jargon (2010)
---- comp,programming
We know it's not a valid absolute timeout, since there's no way
somebody is "waiting" for something that happened in the sixties.
Yeah, yeah, maybe you're waiting for flower power and free sex. Good
for you. But if you are, don't ask the Linux kernel to wait with you.
Ok?                                          -- Linus Torvalds (2010)
---- comp,geek
Al immediately figured out how to delete a third of the code I'd
spent the last year carefully massaging, and then outlined how to
rewrite the other two-thirds of the code more elegantly.
                                         -- Valerie Aurora (2010)
---- comp,programming
[Cups] feels the need to open the PPD files for every known printer. The
result: 2500 stat() calls and 400 opens. On a system with no attached printer.
                                                           -- J. Corbet (2006)
---- comp,unix,geek
There's no reason why a reboot should ever be necessary other than kernel
or hardware changes, and a reboot is simply another temporary approach to
fixing the problem. If the problem occurred once and was "fixed" by a
reboot, it'll happen again.             -- Veteran Unix admin trait No. 9
---- comp,unix
Nobody ever fixed a problem caused by a full /var partition by
rebooting the box.
---- comp,unix
Note that remote fs behaviour is a much more academic issue - anyone
relying on inotify on those needs professional help of a different
kind.                                              -- Al Viro (2011)
---- comp,geek,linux
Bugs are like mushrooms - found one, look around for more...
                                           -- Al Viro (2011)
---- comp,programming
Wait a week or two for ReiserFS V4 to ship to you.
                             -- Hans Reiser (2004)
---- comp,linux,geek
Hardware raid controllers are like bricklayers: Their work is hard
and repetitive, and if you ask for something complicated, things go
horribly wrong.
---- comp,geek
The reason for not disclosing the driver code is that publishing
might put the innocent and unprepared reader in danger of gastric
ulcer and eyecancer.                    -- Thomas Gleixner (2012)
---- comp,programming,open source
The strategy of deferring work probably predates mankind, but only
in the last few decades have workers recognized this strategy's value
in simplifying parallel algorithms.         -- Paul E. McKenny (2011)
---- comp,geek,programming
We are apparently better off trying to avoid udev like the plague.
                                          -- Linus Torvalds (2012)
---- comp,linux
So saying "ACPI is buggy" is like saying "water is wet".
                                -- Linus Torvalds (2012)
---- comp,geek
Encourage things like per-host random keys - with the stupid UEFI
checks disabled entirely if required. They are almost certainly going
to be *more* secure than depending on some crazy root of trust based
on a big company, with key signing authorities that trust anybody
with a credit card.                          -- Linus Torvalds (2013)
---- comp,security,geek
Inotify is a kludge that kinda-sorta works for local disk-backed
filesystems, if you do not mind a pile of races.  For anything else
it's completely worthless.                        -- Al Viro (2013)
---- comp,geek,linux,filesystem
Modern software barely works when the hardware is correct, so relying
on software to correct hardware errors is like asking Godzilla to
prevent Mega-Godzilla from terrorizing Japan. -- James Mickens (2013)
---- comp,hardware
One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
their C programs.                                   -- Robert Firth
---- comp,programming,C
Shitty performance is practically a design goal of /dev/urandom. You
are NOT supposed to hit it more than once per minute per thread.
                                            -- George Spelvin (2015)
---- linux,unix,geek
This new light bulb can run for years without even having an internet
connection!                                       -- bcopeland (2016)
---- comp,geek
You can unlock this door to your house even if you don't have your
phone with you!                                -- bcopeland (2016)
---- comp,geek
New actual ink requires no battery and lasts for centuries with
no charging!                                -- bcopeland (2016)
---- comp,geek
Configuration-management systems tend to invent a domain-specific
configuration language that (eventually) becomes Turing complete.
                                        -- Google LCX team (2016)
---- comp,geek
I'd much rather break this obviously historical connection, but
patching people's wetware is a lot harder than getting a patch into
the kernel tree....                         -- Theodore Ts'o (2017)
---- comp,geek,kernel
Vendors of all OS's have released enough buggy but signed kernel images
over the past years that rummaging around in the archive will find you
a wide choice of signed boot images that'll then let you do wtf you
like including chaining some other target.           -- Alan Cox (2017)
---- comp,geek,microsoft
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
                                                 -- Dan Kaminski (2018)
---- comp,geek,pun
Standards are not some kind of holy book that has to be revered.
Standards too need to be questioned.    -- Linus Torvalds (2018)
---- comp,geek
If you can't make new CPUs faster than the old ones, sometimes it
suffices to make the old CPUs slower than the new ones.
                                                    -- NCM (2018)
---- comp,cpu
There is only one hard problem in computer science: naming and
off-by-one errors.
---- comp,self-reference
> I've yet to see a legitimate use case for putting this brain damage
> in the kernel
Without overly complicated code security researchers wouldn't have
any work to do!                                    -- marcH (2019)
---- comp,security,programming