Ken Thompson Quotes

'Gigabit' seems to mean 600 megabits. It's a VAX gigabit.

Hi, this is Ken. What's the root password?

The X server has to be the biggest program I've ever seen that doesn't do anything for you.

If you want to go somewhere, goto is the best way to get there.

We have persistent objects, they're called files.

Unix was built for me. I didn't build it as an operating system for other people, I built it to do games, and to do my stuff. I was always into games, games was my thing. I used to play pinball machines, and I would pick the lock in the back of pinball machines. Then I'd study the diagrams that I had. That's where I learned a lot of this kind of logic.

When in doubt, use brute force.

grep was a private command of mine for quite a while before i made it public.

Ken Thompson was once asked what he would do differently if he were redesigning the UNIX system. His reply: "I'd spell creat with an e."

I've seen [visual] editors like that, but I don't feel a need for them. I don't want to see the state of the file when I'm editing.

The press, television, and movies make heroes of vandals by calling them whiz kids. ... There is obviously a cultural gap. The act of breaking into a computer system has to have the same social stigma as breaking into a neighbor's house. It should not matter that the neighbor's door is unlocked.

You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code.