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Date: Tue, 05 Nov 1996 21:15:09 GMT
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<title>
Andy "Krazy" Glew's Favorite Quotes and Sayings
</title>

<h1>
Andy "Krazy" Glew's<br>
Favorite Quotes and Sayings
</h1>

This collection started out as a set of IBM computer cards pasted
to the wall of McGill's McConnell Engineering Computer Facility,
where I operated the RJE site and provided programming advice,
was pasted to the glass wall of my office at Gould, 
and has followed me around.

<p>

<hr>

Summus non Americae, eh?
<br>
-- The Canadian National Motto

<hr>

BUGS: it's the PIPELINE, stupid!!!
<br>
-- Andy Glew

<UL>
<LI>
Expressing my observation that many bugs in P6 were caused by incorrect
design of one dimensional pipelines, not the multi-pipeline decoupled nature
of P6.
<LI>
The title of a talk I gave at the IEEE Asilomar Conference in 1994.
<LI>
We need more formal methods for the straightforward design of pipelines.
</UL>

<hr>

Bypasses - just say no.
<br>
-- Andy Glew

<hr>

<DL>
<DT><BIG><STRONG>An Architect</STRONG></BIG>
<DT><SMALL><SUB>A Micro-Architect</SUB></SMALL>
</DL>
-- Robert Geva
<p>
(You will not be able to see this without HTML 3, supporting
the "BIG" and "SMALL" HTML commands.)
</p>

<hr>

Measure twice, cut once.
<br>
-- "This Old House"

<hr>

Virtual - something that isn't there, but appears to be.
<p>
Transparent - something that is there, but doesn't appear to be.

<hr>


"In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the
learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no
longer exists."
<br>
--- Al Rogers, Global SchoolHouse Network, speaking at CUE

<DL>
<DT>Glew comment:<DD>
    I wonder if there is some correlation between "liberal" 
    and "ability to learn and adapt to new things",
    so that liberalism is a trait that has a survival advantage
    in times of rapid change, 
    but which is of less advantage during the long intervals
    of less change.
    The computer industry may act as an example:
    profoundly liberal when it started,
    conservative now that the time of great innovations and new ideas has passed.
</DL>



<hr>

The 3 most important facts in programming:
<ol>
<li>There are N numbers in the set 0..N - <i>not!</i>.
    <br>---paraphrased from Stan Kelly-Bootle
<li>Any programming problem can be solved by adding a level of indirection.
    <br>---Unknown
<li>Any performance problem can be solved by removing a level of indirection.
    <br>---Mike Haertel
</ol>

<p>---Compiled by Mike Haertel.

<hr>

Q: What is the single most important fact in Computer Science?
<p>
A: The fact that there are N+1 elements in the set {0..N}
<p>
---Stan Kelly-Bootle


<hr>

Names are a scarce resource.
<br>---Andy Glew

<hr>

If it ain't broke, find something else to fix
<br>
-- Tim Olson, AMD

<hr>

The worst maxim around is 
"Don't fix it if it ain't broke".
You'd better be improving it,
because your competitor is.
<br>---Wayne Calloway, Pepsico CEO
<br>---FORTUNE April 10, 1989

<hr>

All great ideas eventually degenerate to hardware
<br>---Peter Drucker?
<p>
(The poor ideas remain in software)

<hr>

Computer memory requirements are growing by 1 address bit / 18 months
<br>---IBM, 1987

<hr>

If your users don't cost more than the appropriate computers,
you should get better users
(unless they are grad students)
<br>[e-mail]
<p>
(Justification for running emacs on Cray)

<hr>

<b>ALWAYS code to be reused</b>.

Because then your code can be reused.
Saying that "this code will never be reused" 
and coding that way is a self fulfilling prophecy.
<br>---Andy Glew

<hr>

There has never been a good product designed by a committee.

<p>

Keep a decade behind.

<p>

I'm all for simplicity.
If it's very complicated I can't understandit.

<p>

Parity is for farmers.

<p>
---Seymour Cray

<hr>

Now that I have taught you how to avoid division,
the next time I will teach you how to avoid multiplication.
<p>
---Seymour Cray, talking to numerical analysts.

<hr>

Let's make smart machines to run slower software faster!
<br>---Bob Campbell, uw-beaver!tikal!bobc

<hr>

<dl>
<dt>
Flon's axiom:
<dd>
There does not now, nor will there ever,
exist a programming language in which it is the least bit hard
to write bad programs.
</dl>

<hr>

Development is maintenance.
<br>---Brian E. Marick

<hr>

"Do you really want to do this?"
is a question that should never be asked
unless there is a chance that the answer is "No".
<p>
Otherwise, if you are asked this question 9 times a day,
answering "Yes",
the 10th time will have you answering out of habit.

<hr>

<dl>
<dt>
The 10th axiom of Systemantics
<dd>
When a fail-safe system fails,
it fails by failing to fail safe.
</dl>
<p>
---John Gall, Systemantics

<hr>

Scientific applications grow a factor of 100 every 10 years
<br>---Giles

<hr>

Perfection is the enemy of the dissertation
<br>---Ivan Sutherland

<hr>

Perfection is the enemy of completion.
<br>---Andy Glew

<hr>

If all else fails, follow the instructions.
<p>
<dl>
<dt><dd>
No! No! No! 
<b>Read</b> the instructions, bearing in mind 
they're probably fucked up anyway!
<br>---Andy Glew
</dl>


<hr>

Indirection is the right direction.
<br>---Andy Glew

<hr>

Never put off until run time what can be done at compile time.
<dl>
<dt><dd>
You wouldn't believe the shit I got from late binding advocates
the first time I posted this to a Gould newsgroup!
<br>---Andy Glew.
</dl>

<hr>

Never put off until execution time what can be done at decode time.
<br>---Andy Glew

<hr>

Recurses! Called again...
<p>
Recurse you, Mad Baron!

<hr>

It's easier to apologize than to ask permission.
<br>---Grace Hopper

<hr>

We need a coalition to stamp out smart I/O devices.
<br>---Chris Torek

<hr>
Most "smart" I/O controllers are, in fact, "smart-ass" I/O controllers.
<br>---Rob Pike (paraphrased)

<hr>

An educated man knows of a synonym for every concept.

<hr>

<dl>
<dt>
The Titanic Effect
<dd>
The severity with which a system fails
is proportional to the intensity of the designers'
belief that it cannot.
</dl>

<hr>

In the early 1970s 8K of ROM was equal to 8 bits of register space.
What a reason for microcode!
<br>---Info from Patterson, 1985

<hr>

Instructions should not bind together operations
which an optimizing compiler might otherwise choose to separate
in order to produce a more efficient program.
<br>---Brian Case

<hr>
It's just a shift to the left<br>
And then a shift to the ri-i-i-i-ght<br>
Get a load of those MIPS<br>
And the code's real ti-i-ight<br>
This lockstep pipeline<br>
Really drives me insa-a-a-a-a-ane<br>
Let's do the pre-charge again!
<br>---Brian Case

<hr>

Measurement of repetition is not equivalent to repetition of measurement.
<br>---Eugene Miya

<hr>

The best is the enemy of the good.

<hr>

<dl>
<dt>RISC
<dd>
Relegates Important Stuff to Compilers
</dl>

<hr>

The maxim
<cite>
Nothing avails but perfection
</cite>
may be spelled
<cite>
P A R A L Y S I S
</cite>
<p>
---Winston Churchill

<hr>

Turning off the type and range checking after the program
is debugged is like throwing away the lifeboats after the maiden
voyage.
<p>
(Or like travelling without a convoy through a submarine war zone.)

<hr>

The biggest (and most common) mistake in computer design is not providing
enough address bits.
<br>---Bell and Mudge,  "Evolution of PDP-11"

<hr>

Rules of Thumb

<ul>

<li>
Every 3 years transistor account on a chip increases 2X.

<li>
Every 3 years chip  speed increases by 2X.

<li>
Every 3 years DRAMs increase in size by 4X.

<li>
Every 10 years DRAMs get 30% faster.

<li>
Every 3 years Disks increase in size by 2X.

<li>
Every 10 years Disks get 30% faster.

<li>
1MB of main memory is required for every MIP.
    <dl>
    <dd><i>No way! Disproved on microcomputers!</i>
    </dl>

<li>
1Mb/s of bandwidth is required to feed every MIP.

<li>
Programmers increase the size of programs 2X every year.

</ul>

<p>
--- UNIX International, May 7, 1990

<hr>

<dl>
<dt>Rule for debugging:
<dd>
When in doubt, print it out!
</dl>

<hr>

Buying clothes more than once a decade is a waste of time<br>
--- Andy Glew

<hr>
<hr>
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