Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Ellen Ullman

Quote by Ellen Ullman

Work

The Bug

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Ellen Ullman
Ellen Ullman

Ellen Ullman is an American author known for her works that blend computer science and literature. Her writing often explores themes of technology, gender, and identity. more

You May Also Like

“Because of the tendency of engineers to focus more on engineering matters rather than on archaeology, history, or anthropology, they are often accused of stripping artifacts of their cultural context and cherrypicking the evidence. Yet as an engineer, I strongly argue that the engineering context is, in fact, a cultural context in and of itself--one that is less susceptible to ambiguity than the cultural context of mummies and potsherds, which can be added decades or even centuries after a building has been completed.”

CultureHistoryEvidenceEngineeringEngineersAmbiguityArchaeologyArtifactsMummies
Book:Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs
Create image

“Meanwhile, the original programmers will have left, and their replacements -- believing they understand the code -- will make some truly spectacular errors, mistakes that will suddenly make everything completely stop working for a while. So that what had seemed to be a descending curve of bugs, a fall toward the ever-receding zero, will reveal itself as the shape of another equation altogether: a line of relentlessly rising, bug-counts climbing in an endless battle against infinity.”

EngineersBugsComputers
Book:The Bug
Create image

“They were mostly in their 20s and 30s, and, with a few exceptions, were playing a major role in a program for the first or second time. In many ways they resembled the teams that made up the Apollo Project: young engineers, often right out of school, with seemingly limitless confidence and energy. NASA people who worked on Apollo and stayed with the agency for twenty years or more hold the fondest memories for that frantic period and time of their life. In interviews for this book, there often was a similar sense of nostalgia and accomplishment among the F-8 DFBW alumni. However, if for many of those immersed in Apollo the rest of their careers seemed anti-climatic, this is not true of the F-8 engineers. They went on to several more projects before many of them landed on the administrative floor of Center Building 4800, each with challenges comparable to those of the fly-by-wire program.”

EngineersApollo
Book:Computers In Spaceflight: The NASA Experience
Create image

“Engaging specialists in interpreting ancient artifacts in Egypt is absolutely necessary in establishing a credible hypothesis. Without their input, there cannot be a comprehensive understanding of the past. For instance, the pyramids on the Giza Plateau were built not by Egyptologists or archaeologists but by engineers and craftsmen. It is not surprising, therefore, that Egyptologists overlook engineering features and nuances that would be recognized immediately by those who are trained in those disciplines.”

EngineersHypothesisPyramidsSpecialistsArchaeologyEgyptologyAncient ArtifactsCraftsmen
Book:Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs
Create image

“Florida is full of long-range, unending road jobs that break the backs, pocketbooks, and hearts of the roadside business. The primitive, inefficient, childlike Mexicans somehow manage to survey, engineer, and complete eighty miles of high-speed divided highway through raw mountains and across raging torrents in six months. But the big highway contractors in Florida take a year and a half turning fifteen miles of two-lane road across absolutely flat country into four-lane divided highway. The difference is in American know-how. It's know-how in the tax problems, and how to solve them. The State Road Department says a half-year contract will cost the State ten million, and a one-year contract will cost nine, and a year-and-a-half deadline will go for eight. Then Doakes can take on three or four big jobs simultaneously, and lease the equipment from a captive corporation. and listlessly move the equipment from job to job, and spread it out to gain the biggest profit. The only signs of frantic activity can be two or three men with cement brooms who look at first like scarecrows but, when watched carefully, can be perceived to move, much like the minute hand on a clock.”

PoliticsTaxesEngineersHighwaysRoads
Book:Pale Gray for Guilt
Create image