18+ Philip Greenspun Quotes On Education, Democracy And Culture

Philip Greenspun is an American scientist and entrepreneur. He is best known for his work in the fields of computer science, photography, and aviation. He is the founder of ArsDigita, a software company which was acquired by Red Hat in 2001. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Philip Greenspun on education, democracy, leadership.

The book the Ziff folks sent me as an example of their art was 'Late Night VRML 2.0 with Java,' 700 pages + CD-ROM, published February 1997. I was personally acquainted with more movie stars than people who might conceivably have wanted to buy this book or any book like it. — Philip Greenspun

We're not a vocational school. If someone wants to get a high-paying job, I would hope that there are easier ways to do it than working through a formal computer science curriculum. — Philip Greenspun

SQL, Lisp, and Haskell are the only programming languages that I've seen where one spends more time thinking than typing. — Philip Greenspun

Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming: any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp. — Philip Greenspun

We worried about competitors, but it was an unreasonable fear. As a friend once pointed out, most gunshot wounds are self-inflicted. — Philip Greenspun

Even the lamest page can be saved by collaboration. — Philip Greenspun

Everything that I've learned about computers at MIT I have boiled down into three principles: Unix: You think it won't work, but if you find the right wizard, they can make it work. Macintosh: You think it will work, but it won't. PC/Windows: You think it won't work, and it won't. — Philip Greenspun

Frame is a good enough piece of software that there are actually rewards to taking an intelligent and formal approach to your problem. But if you want to be stupid, you can think of Frame as a version of Microsoft Word with most of the bugs taken out. — Philip Greenspun

Most people who are rich chose their parents wisely. — Philip Greenspun

Like most people in Academia, my vision of the future is the same as the average industry person's vision of five years ago. — Philip Greenspun

If I'd had more time or been a better writer, I would have tried to put the same ideas and experiences into a novel. But I didn't so I slapped it up on the Web. — Philip Greenspun

When you choose a language, youre also choosing a community. The programmers youll be able to hire to work on a Java project wont be as smart as the ones you could get to work on a project written in Python. And the quality of your hackers probably matters more than the language you choose. Though, frankly, the fact that good hackers prefer Python to Java should tell you something about the relative merits of those languages. — Philip Greenspun

Start by putting yourself in your users' shoes. Why are they coming to your site? If you look at most Web sites, you'd presume that the answer is "User is extremely bored and wishes to stare at a blank screen for several minutes while a flashing icon loads, then stare at the flashing icon for a few more minutes." — Philip Greenspun

Even within traditional universities there has always been debate about whether it wouldn't be better to focus on only one course at a time. — Philip Greenspun

Remember that in 1993 a company with a bad Web site needed an engineer. Today, a company with a bad Web site needs a psychiatrist. — Philip Greenspun

The devil is real. He lives inside C programs. — Philip Greenspun

I don't myself believe in astrology. However, I think that's because I'm a Libra and Libras are always skeptical. — Philip Greenspun

Although the Buddhists will tell you that desire is the root of suffering, my personal experience leads me to point the finger at system administration. — Philip Greenspun

Life Lessons by Philip Greenspun

1. Philip Greenspun's work emphasizes the importance of collaboration, creativity, and an open-minded approach to problem solving.
2. He also stresses the need to take risks and to be willing to learn from mistakes.
3. His work highlights the value of networking and leveraging resources to achieve success.