maintain : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English)	by Linux fortune

I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is a fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design :-) (Andrew Tanenbaum to Linus Torvalds)
"Whip me. Beat me. Make me maintain AIX." (By Stephan Zielinski)
Does a good farmer neglect a crop he has planted? Does a good teacher overlook even the most humble student? Does a good father allow a single child to starve? Does a good programmer refuse to maintain his code? -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
It took 300 years to build and by the time it was 10% built, everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But by then the investment was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it has cost a fortune to maintain and is still in danger of collapsing. There are at present no plans to replace it, since it was never really needed in the first place. I expect every installation has its own pet software which is analogous to the above. -- K.E. Iverson, on the Leaning Tower of Pisa
In order to succeed in any enterprise, one must be persistent and patient. Even if one has to run some risks, one must be brave and strong enough to meet and overcome vexing challenges to maintain a successful business in the long run. I cannot help saying that Americans lack this necessary challenging spirit today. - Hajime Karatsu
"I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true. - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87
The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events, the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light, but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast powers in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task. - Albert Einstein
"Maintain an awareness for contribution -- to your schedule, your project, our company." -- A Group of Employees
"Pseudocode can be used to some extent to aid the maintenance process. However, pseudocode that is highly detailed - approaching the level of detail of the code itself - is not of much use as maintenance documentation. Such detailed documentation has to be maintained almost as much as the code, thus doubling the maintenance burden. Furthermore, since such voluminous pseudocode is too distracting to be kept in the listing itself, it must be kept in a separate folder. The result: Since pseudocode - unlike real code - doesn't have to be maintained, no one will maintain it. It will soon become out of date and everyone will ignore it. (Once, I did an informal survey of 42 shops that used pseudocode. Of those 42, 0 [zero!], found that it had any value as maintenance documentation." --Meilir Page-Jones, "The Practical Guide to Structured Design", Yourdon Press (c) 1988
Laws of Computer Programming: (1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete. (2) Any given program costs more and takes longer. (3) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed. (4) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented. (5) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory. (6) The value of a program is proportional the weight of its output. (7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it.
To lose weight, eat less; to gain weight, eat more; if you merely wish to maintain, do whatever you were doing. The Bronx diet is a legitimate system of food therapy showing that food SHOULD be used a crutch and which food could be the most effective in promoting spiritual and emotional satisfaction. For the first time, an eater could instantly grasp the connection between relieving depression and Mallomars, and understand why a lover's quarrel isn't so bad if there's a pint of ice cream nearby. -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet"
To write a sonnet you must ruthlessly strip down your words to naked, willing flesh. Then bind them to a metaphor or three, and take by force a satisfying mesh. Arrange them to your will, each foot in place. You are the master here, and they the slaves. Now whip them to maintain a constant pace and rhythm as they stand in even staves. A word that strikes no pleasure? Cast it out! What use are words that drive not to the heart? A lazy phrase? Discard it, shrug off doubt, and choose more docile words to take its part. A well-trained sonnet lives to entertain, by making love directly to the brain.
If a putt passes over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to maintain a position in the atmosphere without something to support it must drop. The law of gravity supercedes the law of golf. -- Donald A. Metz
"Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth." "Or by misleading the innocent." -- Spock and McCoy, "And The Children Shall Lead", stardate 5029.5.
The War Against Linux A significant obstacle on the path to Linux World Domination has emerged. A reactionary grass-roots movement has formed to fight, as they call it, "The War Against Linux". This movement, code-named "LinSux", is composed of people (mostly Microsoft stockholders and commercial software developers) who want to maintain the status quo. They are fighting back against the rise of Linux and free software which they see as a threat to their financial independence. The most damaging attack the LinSux folks have launched is "Three Mile Island", a Windows macro virus designed to inflict damage on computers that contain a partition devoted to a non-Microsoft OS. When the victim computer is booted into Windows, the virus activates and deletes any non-Microsoft partitions. Ironically, the many security flaws in Windows allow the virus to damage alternative operating systems but leave Windows unscathed. "The War Against Linux" has also been fought in more subtle ways. Time-tested methods of Linux advocacy have been turned into subtle forms of anti-Linux advocacy by the LinSux crowd. MSCEs are smuggling NT boxes into companies that predominantly use Linux or Unix. LinSux "freedom fighters" are rearranging books and software boxes on store shelves so that Microsoft offerings are displayed more prominently.
Brief History Of Linux (#13) Wanted: Eunuchs programmers Everything you know about the creation of the Unix operating system is wrong. We have uncovered the truth: Unix was a conspiracy hatched by Ritchie and Thompson to thwart the AT&T monopoly that they worked for. The system, code-named EUNUCHS (Electronic UNtrustworthy User-Condemning Horrible System), was horribly conceived, just as they had planned. The OS, quickly renamed to a more respectable "Unix", was adopted first by Ma Bell's Patent Department and then by the rest of the monopoly. AT&T saw an inexpensive, multi-user, portable operating system that it had all rights to; the authors, however, saw a horrible, multi-crashing system that the Evil Ma Bell Empire would become hopelessly dependent on. AT&T would go bankrupt trying to maintain the system and eventually collapse. That didn't happen. Ritchie and Thompson were too talented to create a crappy operating system; no matter how hard they tried the system was too good. Their last ditch effort to sabotage the system by recoding it obfuscated C was unsuccessful. Before long Unix spread outside of Bell Labs and their conspiracy collapsed.
Bill Gates Sends Out Desperate Plea For Help REDMOND -- In a shocking development, Chief Bloatware Architect Bill Gates admitted today that Microsoft is in severe financial difficulty and desperately needs donations to stay afloat through the next month. "The dismal state of the economy, the lackluster sales of Windows ME, and the pending anti-trust lawsuit have placed significant financial stress on Microsoft," Gates said at a press conference. "We can't continue to develop and maintain our innovative solutions without financial contributions from users like you." The company spent the remaining $10,000 in its coffers to send out letters to registered Windows users pleading for donations. "For just pennies a day, you can help support the world's most innovative company in its quest to discover the cure for the Blue Screen of Death," the letter announces. "Or you can help fund research and development into improving the security of our products against such sinister forces as script kiddies, crackers, and Linux freaks."
Class-Action Lawsuit Filed Against Linus Torvalds SILLYCON VALLEY -- Nearly 130 former system administrators have filed suit against Linus Torvalds in which they claim Linux cost them their jobs. Recently several companies migrated from Windows to Linux, increasing their productivity but decreasing the need for a large staff of tech workers, prompting a wave of layoffs. "The good old days when it required five full-time system administrators to maintain a Microsoft Exchange server are history, all because of that cancer known as Linux," explained the lead litigant in the lawsuit. "It all started two years ago when some pimply-faced idiot down in Accounting decided to smuggle in a Linux box to automate some of his work. Before long every tech-savvy person in Accounting, Billing, and Sales was secretly using Linux." "That's when the troubles started. Productivity soared. Downtime was limited to an average of three milliseconds per day. Macro viruses ceased to spread. It was horrible! The entire IT staff was replaced by one part-time bearded wonder, who was able to administrate the entire Linux network! Due to the layoffs, I'm now sitting in a homeless shelter with little hope to find work. Nobody wants to hire an MCSE anymore!"
He who stands on tiptoe is not steady. He who strides cannot maintain the pace. He who makes a show is not enlightened. He who is self-righteous is not respected. He who boasts achieves nothing. He who brags will not endure. According to followers of the Tao, "These are extra food and unnecessary luggage." They do not bring happiness. therefore followers of the Tao avoid them.
<BenC> -include ../../debian/el33t.h <BenC> sendmail build...strange header name :) <isildur> hahaha * netgod laffs <netgod> BenC: can u tell i used to maintain sendmail? :P <BenC> heh :)
Whip me. Beat me. Make me maintain AIX. -- Stephan Zielinski
I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is a fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design :-) -- Andrew Tanenbaum to Linus Torvalds
"We maintain that the very foundation of our way of life is what we call free enterprise," said Cash McCall, "but when one of our citizens show enough free enterprise to pile up a little of that profit, we do our best to make him feel that he ought to be ashamed of himself." -- Cameron Hawley
Even if you aren't in doubt, consider the mental welfare of the person who has to maintain the code after you, and who will probably put parens in the wrong place. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page