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The main activity of programming is not the origination of new independent programs, but in the integration, modification, and explanation of existing ones.

— Terry Winograd

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Computers

More quotes by Terry Winograd

The techniques of artificial intelligence are to the mind what bureaucracy is to human social interaction.

Seekers after the glitter of intelligence are misguided in trying to cast it in the base metal of computing.

In designing tools we are designing ways of being.

Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design (1986)

There is a tendency to throw computers at third world problems, which I think is often a distraction. Putting computers in the schools is great, but it may be more important to put teachers in the schools.

A reason to have computers understand natural language is that it’s an extremely effective way of communicating. What I came to realize is that the success of the communication depends on the real intelligence on the part of the listener, and that there are many other ways of communicating with a computer that can be more effective, given that it doesn’t have the intelligence.

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Software engineering is the part of computer science which is too difficult for the computer scientist.

Friedrich Bauer Bauer (1971)

A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.

Alan Turing Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)

Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.

Fred Brooks

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.

Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Attribution

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