David Gelernter Quotes

Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity.

'Programming' is a four-letter word.

Everybody is designing magic iPhone apps that do things that are really, really beautiful, but a really important thing about magic is that the gimmick has to be ugly.

It always helps to be a good programmer. It is important to like computers and to be able to think of things people would want to do with their computers.

Giving the kids a programming environment of any sort, whether it's a tool like Squeak or Scratch or Logo to write programs in a childish way - and I mean that in the most generous sense of the word, that is, playing with and building things - is one of the best ways to learn.

Building technical systems involves a lot of hard work and specialized knowledge: languages and protocols, coding and debugging, testing and refactoring.

I majored in Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley and worked as a software developer for a couple of years. Then I taught high school computer science for over a decade and a half in Oakland, California.

I started programming Apples in seventh grade.

Computers are really, basically, computing elements and a lot of memory. They are pretty easy to understand, as compared to the brain, which was designed by evolution.

It was beautiful and simple, as truly great swindles are.

Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.

Is there anything in the universe more beautiful and protective than the simple complexity of a spider's web?

There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.

Most works are most beautiful without ornament.

Luxury is not a necessity to me, but beautiful and good things are.

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book.

No one should notice how your eyes are done or the color of your eyeshadow. They should just notice you and notice that you're beautiful, that you have beautiful eyes.

The whole season thing is nonsense. It's either beautiful or it isn't. That's something I really learned when I started collecting dresses.

Between the semi-educated, who offer simplistic answers to complex questions, and the overeducated, who offer complicated answers to simple questions, it is a wonder that any questions get satisfactorily answered at all.

Java is C++ without the guns, clubs and knives.

There is a grandeur in this view of life, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful are being evolved

A mobile phone needs a manual in the way that a teacup doesn't

In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

In this world, the greatest courage is to drop the mind aside. The bravest man is who can see the world without the barrier of the mind, just as it is. It is tremendously different, utterly beautiful. There is nobody who is inferior and there is nobody who is superior - there are no distinctions.

Paint the flying spirit of the bird rather than its feathers.