The Atari Compendium/The Atari Compendium (Toad Computers) (1994).iso/files/umich/utils/warp9/w9fortne.lzh/FORTUNES.ASC

Text File | 1993-02-23 | 51KB | 881 lines

"Compatible":  Gracefully accepts erroneous data from any source.
"Machine-independent":  Does not run on any existing machine.
"Portable":  Survives system reboot.
1 bull, 3 cows.
A bug in the hand is better than one as yet undetected.
A computer program does what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do.
After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn.
Any given program will expand to fill available memory.
Any program which runs right is obsolete.
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code.
Asking whether machines can think is like asking whether submarines can swim.
Avoid temporary variables and strange women.
Brain fried -- core dumped.
Death is a nonmaskable interrupt.
Disc space -- the final frontier!
Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts.
Don't let the computer bugs bite!
Everybody needs a little love sometime; stop hacking and fall in love!
Help!  I'm trapped in a Chinese computer factory!
How was Thomas J. Watson buried?  9 edge down.
I am a computer -- dumber than any human and smarter than an administrator.
I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere.
I must have slipped a disk; my pack hurts.
If God had intended Man to program, we'd be born with serial I/O ports.
If a program is useful, it must be changed.
If a program is useless, it must be documented.
If at first you don't succeed, you must be a programmer.
If it was easy, the hardware people would take care of it.
It's ten o'clock; do you know where your processes are?
Kiss your keyboard goodbye!
LISP:  To call a spade a thpade.
Last one out, turn off the computer!
Long computations which yield zero are probably all for naught.
Manual Writer's Creed:  Garbage in, gospel out.
Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle.  --Steinbach
Nice computers don't go down.
No program done by a hacker will work unless he is on the system.
No program done by an undergrad will work after she graduates.
Old programmers never die; they just branch to a new address.
On a clear disk, you can seek forever.
One of the nice things about standards is that there are so many of them.
One person's error is another person's data.
Programmers do it bit by bit.
Programming just with goto's is like swatting flies with a sledgehammer.
Protect your software at all costs -- all else is meat.
Random access is the optimum of the mass storages.
Remember the good old days, when CPU was singular?
Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU.
Save energy:  Drive a smaller shell.
The attention span of a computer is only as long as its power cord.
The computer is mightier than the pen, the sword, and usually, the programmer.
The program is absolutely right; therefore, the computer must be wrong.
The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output.
The world is coming to an end...  SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!
There's got to be more to life than compile-and-go.
This fortune soaks up 47 times its own weight in excess memory.
This screen intentionally left blank.
Those who can, do.  Those who cannot, teach.  Those who cannot teach, HACK!
To err is human; to really foul things up requires a computer.
To iterate is human; to recurse, divine.
What this country needs is a good five-cent microcomputer.
Where the system is concerned, you're not allowed to ask "Why?".
You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers.
You know it's going to be a bad day when you forget your new password.
You may have mail.
A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.  --Brook
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
All the simple programs have been written, and all the good names taken.
Avoid GOTOs completely if you can keep the program readable.
Avoid the Fortran arithmetic IF (or better yet, just avoid Fortran).
Avoid unnecessary branches.
Be careful when a loop exits to the same place from side and bottom.
Choose variable names that won't be confused.
Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.  --Gilb
Computers talk to each other worse than their designers do.
Design a system any fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.
Don't comment or patch bad code; rewrite it.
Don't compare floating point numbers solely for equality.
Don't diddle code to make it faster; find a better algorithm.
Don't document the program; program the document.
Don't stop at one bug.
Every bug you find is the last one.
Every program is either trivial or it contains at least one bug.
In God we trust; all else we walk through.
Know Thy User.
Let the machine do the dirty work.
Make input easy to proofread.
Make it right before you make it faster.
Make sure all variables are initialized before use.
Make sure comments and code agree.
Make sure your code "does nothing" gracefully.
Never write software that anthropomorphizes the machine.
Never write software that patronizes the user.
Performance is easier to add than clarity.
Remember:  10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.
Replace repetitive expressions by calls to a common function.
The first version always gets thrown away.
The less time planning, the more time programming.
The wise person writes bomb-proof code.
There are always at least two ways to program the same thing.
There are never any bugs you haven't found yet.
There can never be a computer language in which you can't write a bad program.
There's no problem which, when programmed just right, isn't more complicated.
Try not to let implementation details sneak into design documents.
UNIX is many things to many people, but it's never been everything to anybody.
Use GOTOs only to implement a fundamental structure.
Use IF...ELSE  IF...ELSE  IF...ELSE... to implement multi-way branches.
Use free-form input where possible.
Watch out for off-by-one errors.
You don't have to know how the computer works, just how to work the computer.
A gift of flower will soon be made to you.
A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work.
A visit to a strange place will bring fresh work.
Above all things, reverence yourself.
Alimony and bribes will engage a large share of your wealth.
Courage is your greatest present need.
Do not overtax your powers.
Don't despair; your ideal lover is waiting for you around the corner.
Everyone is enthusiastic about your work.
Flee at once, all is discovered.
His heart was yours from the first moment that you met.
Long life is in store for you.
Love is in the offing.  Be affectionate to one who adores you.
Someone is unenthusiastic about your work.
Stop searching forever.  Happiness is just next to you.
The time is right to make new friends.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Try to divide your time evenly to keep others happy.
You are going to have a new love affair.
You fill a much-needed gap.
You have a deep interest in all that is artistic.
You have an ambitious nature and may make a name for yourself.
You have had a long-term stimulation relative to business.
You have taken yourself too seriously.
You will attract cultured and artistic people to your home.
You will be advanced socially, without any special effort on your part.
You will reach the highest possible point in your business or profession.
You'll be called to a post requiring ability in handling groups of people.
Your business will go through a period of considerable expansion.
"All new":  Parts not interchangeable with previous model.
"Define UNIVERSE; give two examples." "The perceived world; 1) mine, 2) yours."
"Foolproof operation":  No provision for adjustment.
"New":  Different color from previous model.
"No maintenance":  Impossible to fix.
"One size fits all":  Doesn't fit anyone.
"Rugged":  Too heavy to lift.
28.35 grams of prevention are worth 0.45359 kilograms of cure.
A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him.
A boss with no humor is like a job that's no fun.
A day without orange juice is like a day without orange juice.
A journey of a th