Quotes from UVA Computer Science professors

Miscellaneous

• "There is a proof that this works, but clearly it's not this one."
• "It's a Catch 22. In fact, it's a Catch 33."
• Muttered while standing in front of the photocopier: "Double sided transparencies is not a good thing."
• Immediately after erasing a very dirty chalkboard: "One of these days, someone is going to prove that chalkdust is a carcinogen, at which point, I will proceed to die."
• "Now, I know that some of you are going to have problems with the programming assignments. Some of you cannot program your way out of a paper bag."
• "There is a proof that this works, but clearly it's not this one."
• Professor walks into student's office carrying a copy of Clapton's new blues CD. He tosses the disc to the student and says he can have it...
  Student: "What's the matter, don't you like it?"
  Professor: "It's not that, I just think the blues are politically incorrect."
• "The best you can do in this game is to get your money back. It's like income tax. You wouldn't play that if it were voluntary."
• "Modus ponens -- it goes back to the Ancient Greeks. Of course, modus ponens is Latin, but..."
• On the priorities of life and what it takes to be a good researcher: "Having kids is an even bigger waste of time than getting married."
• "Let's burn up some computer dollars!"
• "Once you say 'log' you're way out in left field."
• Student, during discussion of quantum mechanics "it just happened" theory of the universe: "So not only were we all accidents, but we continue to be accidents."
  Professor: "You might have been an accident. I wasn't."
• Winner of the Circular Definition Prize: "So if it's an experiment with independent trials, then those trials are gonna be independent."
• "This is what computer science is all about---coming up with cute names."
• "The thing with TI is they get into a field, they screw up and they get out."
• "It impressed me at the time. I was easily impressed."
• "We'd like to save on typing. In UNIX that was taken as a divine directive."
• "We can't go around killing people, just because we want to use the CPU. In some countries that's okay."
• "You go in and do this, then three months later --- since you don't want them to give you a lot of money for one day's work --- you show the results."
• "The output of a computer is what? -- other than error messages."
• "It's good to think of baby/orphan analogies here. Having a baby and not telling it what its name is just won't go."
• "MIT looked into the future...they have a place there where they look into the future..."
• "All the money, background, prestige...none of it compares with hard work and clean living."
  (laughter)
  "It was the 'clean living' that got you, right?"
• "virtual memory...it's like virtual happiness, virtual wealth, all of those nice things you may or may not have been sold on..."
• "I'm a theoretical computer scientist. A lot of people mistake me for a mathematician. Mathematicians never mistake me for a mathematician."
• "And Dijkstra was pleased with the world. And on the seventh day Dijkstra rested."
• Referring to unreliable nuclear system software: "It blew up Kansas, and we don't want that to happen again."
• "`Global variables are good' is part of the company song. It's the chorus.
  (singing) Global variables are good! Gotos are not always bad!"
• "The point here is that gotos are not bad---it's the drunken idiots that use them all over the place!"
• "There are no stupid questions. Just stupid students."
• Trying to quiet down a classroom: "Hey guys. Right now there's a lot of read bits and only one write bit, OK?"
• "I personally have had a difficult time folding a turing tape."
• Student: "What's more powerful than a turing machine?"
  Professor: "A Locomotive."
• "How do you fly if you are up to your neck in alligators or something?"
• "How do you spell 'torus'? Is it the same as the car? I don't buy cars very often. Actually, I'm buying one tomorrow."