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The X server has to be the biggest program I've ever seen that doesn't do anything for you.

— Ken Thompson Plan 9 fortune file (1992)

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More quotes by Ken Thompson

The press, television, and movies make heroes of vandals by calling them whiz kids.

FORTRAN was the language of choice for the same reason that three-legged races are popular.

It does everything Unix does only less reliably.

Plan 9 fortune file (1992)

Ken Thompson was once asked what he would do differently if he were redesigning the UNIX system. His reply: "I'd spell creat with an e."

You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ken Thompson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.