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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call
what he writes fiction.
                -- William Faulkner
        Price Wang's programmer was coding software.  His fingers danced upon
the keyboard.  The program compiled without an error message, and the program
ran like a gentle wind.
        Excellent!" the Price exclaimed, "Your technique is faultless!"
        "Technique?" said the programmer, turning from his terminal, "What I
follow is the Tao -- beyond all technique.  When I first began to program I
would see before me the whole program in one mass.  After three years I no
longer saw this mass.  Instead, I used subroutines.  But now I see nothing.
My whole being exists in a formless void.  My senses are idle.  My spirit,
free to work without a plan, follows its own instinct.  In short, my program
writes itself.  True, sometimes there are difficult problems.  I see them
coming, I slow down, I watch silently.  Then I change a single line of code
and the difficulties vanish like puffs of idle smoke.  I then compile the
program.  I sit still and let the joy of the work fill my being.  I close my
eyes for a moment and then log off."
        Price Wang said, "Would that all of my programmers were as wise!"
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
        *** STUDENT SUCCESSES ***

Many of our students have gone on to achieve great success in all fields of
programming.  One former student developed the concept of the personalized
form letter.  Does the phrase, "Dear Mr.(insert name), You may already be a
winner!," sound familiar?  Another student writes "After only five lessons I
sold a "My Most Unforgettable Program" article to Corrosive Computing magazine.
Another of our graduates writes, "I recently completed a database-management
program for my department manager.  My program touched him so deeply that he
was speechless.  He told me later that he had never seen such a program in
his entire career.  Thank you, Famous Programmers' school; only you could
have made this possible."  Send for our introductory brochure which explains
in vague detail the operation of the Famous Programmers' School, and you'll
be eligible to win a possible chance to enter a drawing, the winner of which
can vie for a set of free steak knives.  If you don't do it now, you'll hate
yourself in the morning.
The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on.
"Is it just me, or does anyone else read `bible humpers' every time
someone writes `bible thumpers?'
-- Joel M. Snyder, jms@mis.arizona.edu
"(The Chief Programmer) personally defines the functional and performance
specifications, designs the program, codes it, tests it, and writes its
documentation... He needs great talent, ten years experience and
considerable systems and applications knowledge, whether in applied
mathematics, business data handling, or whatever."
-- Fred P. Brooks, _The Mythical Man Month_
He who writes with no misspelled words has prevented a first suspicion
on the limits of his scholarship or, in the social world, of his general
education and culture.
                -- Julia Norton McCorkle
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
        Moves on: nor all they Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
        Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
  Everyone writes on the walls except me. -Said to be graffiti seen in Pompeii
Dave Finton gazes into his crystal ball...

January 2099: Rob Malda Finally Gets His Damned Nano-Technology

The Linux hacker community finally breathed a collective sigh of relief
when it was announced that Rob Malda finally got his damned
nanotechnology.

"It's about time!" exclaimed one Dothead. "He been going on about that
crap since god-knows-when. Now that he's got that and those wearable
computers, maybe we can read about something interesting on Slashdot!"

Observers were skeptical, however. Already the now-immortal Rob Malda
nano-cyborg (who reportedly changed his name to "18 of 49, tertiary
adjunct of something-or-other") has picked up a few new causes to shout
about to the high heavens until everyone's ears start bleeding. In one
Slashdot article, Malda writes "Here's an article about the potential of
large greyish high-tech mile-wide cubes flying through space, all
controlled by a collective mind set upon intergalactic conquest.
Personally, I can't wait. Yum."
OPPRESSED GEEK: Everybody keeps blaming me for the Y2K problem, the
Melissa Virus, Windows crashes... you name it. When somebody finds out
you're a bona fide geek, they start bugging you about computer problems. I
frequently hear things like, "Why can't you geeks make Windows work
right?", "What kind of idiot writes a program that can't handle the year
2000?", "Geeks are evil, all they do is write viruses", and "The Internet
is the spawn of Satan".

I'm afraid to admit I have extensive computing experience. When somebody
asks what kind of job I have, I always lie. From my experience, admitting
that you're a geek is an invitation to disaster.

LARRY WALL: I know, I know. I sometimes say that I'm the founder of a
pearl harvesting company instead of admitting that I'm the founder of the
Perl programming language.

ERIC S. RAYMOND: This is tragic. We can't live in a world like this. We
need your donations to fight social oppression and ignorance against
geekdom...

   -- Excerpt from the Geek Grok '99 telethon      
Anonymous Noncoward writes, "For my Economics 101 class, I have to pretend
to be Bill Gates and write an editorial defending Microsoft against
anti-trust charges, citing economic principles. To complete such an
assignment violates every moral fiber of my body. What should I do?"

The Oracle responds: Well, it seems that you have to make a decision among
two choices. You can blow off the assignment, thus forcing you to fail
EC101, lowering your GPA below the required minimum to keep your
scholarship, causing you to drop out of college and work at McDonalds all
your life. Or you can write a paper that's positive towards Microsoft and
make an 'A'. This seems like a no-brainer to me; I'd choose the first
option without hesitation -- a burger flipper has far more dignity and
self-respect than somebody who utters a positive statement about the Evil
Empire.
<knghtbrd> "Java for the COBOL Programmer"
<knghtbrd> who writes these things?
<raptor> people on crack
<raptor> and cobol programmers
<raptor> :)
<knghtbrd> that's redundant.
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