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

— Ken Thompson

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More quotes by Ken Thompson

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)

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

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.