Quotes from the inventor of COBOL
Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (US Navy, Retired)
"If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It's much easier to apologize than it is to get permission."
"A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are for. Sail out to sea and do new things."
"A business' accounts receivable file is much more important than its accounts payable file."
"Life was simple before World War II. After that, we had systems."
"To me programming is more than an important practical art. It is also a gigantic undertaking in the foundations of knowledge."
"One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions"
"I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic."
"In pioneer days they used oxen for heavy pulling, and when one ox couldn't budge a log, they didn't try to grow a larger ox. We shouldn't be trying for bigger computers, but for more systems of computers."
"Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, 'We've always done it this way.' I try to fight that. That's why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise."
"We're flooding people with information. We need to feed it through a processor. A human must turn information into intelligence or knowledge. We've tended to forget that no computer will ever ask a new question."
"You manage things, you lead people. We went overboard on management and forgot about leadership. It might help if we ran the MBAs out of Washington."
"From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it... Upon finding a moth lodged behind a relay and pasting it into the Univac Manual."
"Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down. Respect for one's superiors; care for one's crew."
"Some day, on the corporate balance sheet, there will be an entry which reads, "Information"; for in most cases, the information is more valuable than the hardware which processes it."
"At any given moment, there is always a line representing what your boss will believe. If you step over it, you will not get your budget. Go as close to that line as you can."
"I seem to do a lot of retiring... After retiring twice from the US Navy and once from the private sector."