shelf : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English)	by Linux fortune

One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic is our support for UNIX? Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. -- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984 [It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken Olsen's brain. Ed.]
Barbara's Rules of Bitter Experience: (1) When you empty a drawer for his clothes and a shelf for his toiletries, the relationship ends. (2) When you finally buy pretty stationary to continue the correspondence, he stops writing.
manual, n.: A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The information you need is in the others. -- Ray Simard
purpitation, n.: To take something off the grocery shelf, decide you don't want it, and then put it in another section. -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends
Providence, New Jersey, is one of the few cities where Velveeta cheese appears on the gourmet shelf.
An Hacker there was, one of the finest sort Who controlled the system; graphics was his sport. A manly man, to be a wizard able; Many a protected file he had sitting on his table. His console, when he typed, a man might hear Clicking and feeping wind as clear, Aye, and as loud as does the machine room bell Where my lord Hacker was Prior of the cell. The Rule of good St Savage or St Doeppnor As old and strict he tended to ignore; He let go by the things of yesterday And took the modern world's more spacious way. He did not rate that text as a plucked hen Which says that Hackers are not holy men. And that a hacker underworked is a mere Fish out of water, flapping on the pier. That is to say, a hacker out of his cloister. That was a text he held not worth an oyster. And I agreed and said his views were sound; Was he to study till his head wend round Poring over books in the cloisters? Must he toil As Andy bade and till the very soil? Was he to leave the world upon the shelf? Let Andy have his labor to himself! -- Chaucer [well, almost. Ed.]
I sent a letter to the fish, I said it very loud and clear, I told them, "This is what I wish." I went and shouted in his ear. The little fishes of the sea, But he was very stiff and proud, They sent an answer back to me. He said "You needn't shout so loud." The little fishes' answer was And he was very proud and stiff, "We cannot do it, sir, because..." He said "I'll go and wake them if..." I sent a letter back to say I took a kettle from the shelf, It would be better to obey. I went to wake them up myself. But someone came to me and said But when I found the door was locked "The little fishes are in bed." I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked, I said to him, and I said it plain And when I found the door was shut, "Then you must wake them up again." I tried to turn the handle, But... "Is that all?" asked Alice. "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye."
Jargon Coiner (#13) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * NINETY-NINERS: In 1849, a horde of people ("Forty-niners") headed to California to pan gold and get rich quick. In 1999, a horde of people ("Ninety-niners") headed to California to invest in Linux companies and get rich quick. Some things never change. * ZOO: The ubiquitous shelf of O'Reilly Animal Books that many nerds keep next to their computer * THEY'RE MULTIPLYING LIKE PORTALS: The proliferation of Linux portals that have the latest headlines from Slashdot and LinuxToday but offer little original content. * YOU CAN SPELL EVIL WITHOUT vi: A curse uttered by freshman Computer Science students struggling with vi's insert mode for the first time.