29 Quotes by David Gelernter

The future will be dense with computers. They will hang around everywhere in lush growths, like Spanish moss. They will swarm like locusts. But a swarm is not merely a big crowd: Individuals in the swarm lose their identities; the computers that make up this global swarm will blend together into the seamless substance of the cyberspere.

The “paperless office” is a bad idea because paper is one of the most useful and valuable media ever invented. “On paper” is a good place for information you want to use; a bad place for information you want to store.

Good programmers know what’s beautiful and bad ones don’t.

Object-oriented programming as it emerged in Simula 67 allows software structure to be based on real-world structures, and gives programmers a powerful way to simplify the design and construction of complex programs.

There are great science books that were conceived as books. Feynman’s famous introductory lectures in physics, which have a beginning and an end, which are written with style.

I think the print media have failed to make the most of their opportunity. They may all disappear because they are approaching things in the wrong way.

Really good ideas are always good beyond what you anticipated originally.

The future was and remains the quintessential American art form. Other nations sit back and let their futures happen; we construct ours. We can let the future happen, or take the trouble to imagine it. We can imagine it dark or bright-and in the long run, that’s how it will be.

Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity.