no matter how : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English)	by Linux fortune

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a strings of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity. A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'. What is this law? It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the way that astonishes him least. A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit. The program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward appearances. If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of disorder and confusion. The only way to correct this is to rewrite the program. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
I asked the engineer who designed the communication terminal's keyboards why these were not manufactured in a central facility, in view of the small number needed [1 per month] in his factory. He explained that this would be contrary to the political concept of local self-sufficiency. Therefore, each factory needing keyboards, no matter how few, manufactures them completely, even molding the keypads. -- Isaac Auerbach, IEEE "Computer", Nov. 1979
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. -- Aesop
At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism: The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the field on track. -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987
...And no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers. No matter how assured we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions. This is true in religion as it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the naive. As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we might be advised to leave them to heaven. They will not, unfortunately, do us the same courtesy. They attack us and each other, and whatever their protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear that they are easily disposed to restore to the sword. My own belief in God, then, is just that -- a matter of belief, not knowledge. My respect for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the most virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth. But even well-educated Christians are frustated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure of Jesus because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record. Such ambiguity is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every recognized Bible scholar is perfectly aware of it. Some Christians, alas, resort to formal lying to obscure such reality. - Steve Allen, comdeian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of Conviction", edited by Philip Berman
"The ACLU has stood foursquare against the recurring tides of hysteria that >from time to time threaten freedoms everyhere... Indeed, it is difficult to appreciate how far our freedoms might have eroded had it not been for the Union's valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights of people of all persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised by the majority they were at the time." -- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren
Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats -- approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Quigley's Law: Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will atttempt to use it.
No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up.
No matter how much you do you never do enough.
At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism: The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the field on track. -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"
To code the impossible code, This is my quest -- To bring up a virgin machine, To debug that code, To pop out of endless recursion, No matter how hopeless, To grok what appears on the screen, No matter the load, To write those routines To right the unrightable bug, Without question or pause, To endlessly twiddle and thrash, To be willing to hack FORTRAN IV To mount the unmountable magtape, For a heavenly cause. To stop the unstoppable crash! And I know if I'll only be true To this glorious quest, And the queue will be better for this, That my code will run CUSPy and calm, That one man, scorned and When it's put to the test. destined to lose, Still strove with his last allocation To scrap the unscrappable kludge! -- To "The Impossible Dream", from Man of La Mancha
This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it.
It [being a Vulcan] means to adopt a philosophy, a way of life which is logical and beneficial. We cannot disregard that philosophy merely for personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be. -- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4
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.
Microsoft Website Crashes, World Does Not Come To An End REDMOND, WA -- In a crushing blow to Bill Gates' ego, world civilization did not collapse when the Microsoft website was offline for an extended period last week. During the anti-trust trial, Microsoft's lawyers repeatedly warned that if the company was broken up or dealt any other penalty (no matter how trivial), it would not only cost the tech industry billions of dollars, but it could decimate the entire world economy and even bring about the start of World War III. At the risk of sounding like a biased, slanted, overzealous journalist, let me just say: Yeah, right! The stunning realization that the world does not revolve around Redmond (yet) has plunged many Microsoft executives into shock. "But microsoft.com is the single most important website in the world! And Microsoft is the single most important company in the Universe! This can't be happening! Why isn't civilization teetering on the edge right now?" said one depressed President Of Executive Vice.
Microsoft is like a mountain with their installed base. Like it or not, no matter how loud the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it. - Jeff Merkey on linux-advoca^Wkernel
And he climbed with the lad up the Eiffelberg Tower. "This," cried the Mayor, "is your town's darkest hour! The time for all Whos who have blood that is red to come to the aid of their country!" he said. "We've GOT to make noises in greater amounts! So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!" Thus he spoke as he climbed. When they got to the top, the lad cleared his throat and he shouted out, "YOPP!" And that Yopp... That one last small, extra Yopp put it over! Finally, at last! From the speck on that clover their voices were heard! They rang out clear and clean. And they elephant smiled. "Do you see what I mean?" They've proved they ARE persons, no matter how small. And their whole world was saved by the smallest of All!" "How true! Yes, how true," said the big kangaroo. "And, from now on, you know what I'm planning to do? From now on, I'm going to protect them with you!" And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "ME TOO! From the sun in the summer. From rain when it's fall-ish, I'm going to protect them. No matter how small-ish!" -- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who"
No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. -- Florida Scott-Maxwell
Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt someone. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup -- they all die. So do we. And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living. Think of what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world it is best to hold hands and stick together. -- Robert Fulghum, "All I ever really needed to know I learned in kindergarten"
No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.