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When knowledge passes into code, it changes state; like water turned to ice, it becomes a new thing, with new properties. We use it, but in a human sense, we no longer know it.
Ellen Ullman
KnowledgeWaterIceNewKnowHuman
Productivity has always been the justification for the prepackaging of programming knowledge. But it is worth asking about the sort of productivity gains that come from the simplifications of click-and-drag.
KnowledgeWorthProgrammingAsking
I came of technical age with UNIX, where I learned with power-greedy pleasure that you could kill a system right out from under yourself with a single command.
AgeYourselfYouRightSingleOut
The condition of my personal workspace is my own business, as I see it.
BusinessPersonalMy OwnSeeOwn
The ability to 'multitask,' to switch rapidly among many competing focuses of attention, has become the hallmark of a successful citizen of the 21st century.
AttentionCitizenBecomeAbility
Introduced in the 1960s, multitasking is an engineering strategy for making computers more efficient. Human beings are the slowest elements in a system.
ComputersEngineeringStrategyHuman
Internet voting is surely coming. Though online ballots cannot be made secure, though the problems of voter authentication and privacy will remain unsolvable, I suspect we'll go ahead and do it anyway.
ProblemsInternetVotingPrivacyGo
The act of voting, to put it in computing terms, is a question of user interface.
VotingQuestionActInterfaceUser
Y2K is showing everyone what technical people have been dealing with for years: the complex, muddled, bug-bitten systems we all depend on, and their nasty tendency toward the occasional disaster.
PeopleEveryoneDependYearsComplex
Y2K has challenged a belief in digital technology that has been almost religious.
TechnologyBeliefDigitalBeen
Computer systems could not work without standards - an agreement among programs and systems about how they will exchange information.
WorkInformationWillStandardsHow
Watching a program run is not as revealing as reading its code.
ReadingRunWatchingCodeRevealing
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