"Now wait", he interrupted before Richard even had a chance to start, "don't
I vaguely remember that you had some sort of computer when you were here? When was it?
1977?"
"Well, what we called a computer in 1977 was really a kind of electric abacus, but ..."
"Oh, now, don't underestimate the abacus," said Reg, "In skilled hands it's a very
sophisticated calculating device. Furthermore it requires no power, can be made with any
materials you have in hand, and never goes bing in the middle of an important piece of
work."
"So an electric one would be particularly pointless," said Richard.
"True enough," conceded Reg.
"There really wasn't a lot this machine could do that you couldn't do yourself in half
the time with a lot less trouble," said Richard, "but it was, on the other hand, very
good at being a slow and dim-witted pupil."
Reg looked at him quizzically.
"I had no idea they were supposed to be in short supply," he said. "I could hit a dozen
with a bread roll from where I'm sitting."
"I'm sure. But look at it this way. What really is the point of trying to
teach anything to anybody?"
This question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approval from up and down
the table.
Richard continued, "What I mean is that if you really want to understand something,
the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out
in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to
break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of
programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that
even a stupid machine can deal with, you've certainly learned something about it
yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil. Isn't that true?"
"It would be hard to learn much less than my pupils", came a low growl from
somewhere on the table, "without undergoing a pre-frontal lobotomy."
-- Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
user, n.:
The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot."
-- Dave Barry, "Claw Your Way to the Top"
[I always thought "computer professional" was the phrase hackers used
when they meant "idiot." Ed.]
-- From Fortune
A person who is more than casually interested in computers should be well
schooled in machine language, since it is a fundamental part of a
computer.
-- Donald Knuth
A hacker does for love what others would not do for money.
As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.
HTTPD Error 666 : BOFH was here
Perfect security is an illusion. The only thing you can do
is to raise the bar and hope noone is able to jump that high.
-- http://www.trusteddebian.org/demo.html
