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Quotes by David Gries

• Voting: - 292 +
  I, Gries, have 56 years of programming experience.
  You have perhaps 1. I don't think your knowledge of programming is enough for you to make a decision like this.
  — David Gries, on allegations of discussing loops in a cumbersome and unintuitive fashion. · Feb. 22, 2017 · Permalink
• Voting: - 4 +
  I want to be sure we finish, so I'm not going to worry about termination.
  — David Gries, Proving the correctness of a loop, with only a few minutes remaining in the lecture. · Nov. 1, 2004 · Permalink
• Voting: - 13 +
  Research Summary 1980-81

  Well, I didn't get much done this year. I tried, but I wasn't too successful. Something always kept me from making the significant, creative advances I wanted to make. Maybe next year will be better, but this year was a washout.

  I don't mean to offer these as excuses, but here are some of the things that interrupted my thinking and kept all those neat ideas from springing out of me (I know they're in me, somewhere). I was in charge of the United Way fund for our department. Three cases of sexual harassment (going both ways) were handled by me in my position as graduate field rep. One student hurt his head and was in the hospital for a week at Christmas time. Somebody had to look after him, so I visited him and read comics to him every day. Because I don't really have any opinions of my own, and can therefore be called neutral, I was called on to mediate in the usual political fights between faculty members, which we all know are ruining our department. The heat didn't work and the bathroom stunk and the traffic bureau wanted to revoke our VP sticker and a student's dog bit another student and an M.Eng. student failed the colloquium course and one student ate five doughnuts before one colloquium and we went 1 student over our quota and a student's lunch was stolen from the refrigerator. Each of these called for a careful 2-page letter. These are only a few of the incidents that I took care of.

  I did write and prove correct a 20-line program in January, but I made the mistake of testing it on our VAX and it had an error, which two weeks of searching didn't uncover, so there went one publication out the window. I guess I could have slipped it into IPL anyway, since I'm an editor for it, but, since I have tenure already, I didn't feel right in doing that.

  I did work on the four-color problem. The work at Illinois had convinced me that you didn't have to prove your programs correct to publish in math journals - the messier the program, the more likelihood of acceptance. But, after a week, I had to draw maps with four colors and the secretaries were out of the non-permanent colored transparency pens and I lost interest.

  Every once in a while I would try to get something done at home, but that, too, was a bomb. My Terak would act up, so I couldn't write, and my pen was broken. I was assistant to the assistant coach in both baseball and soccer for my son's team (that's the only way we could get him to play regularly), so I had to spend a lot of time at Cass Park. Then there was boy scouts and those awful camping trips in the rain, which would lay me up in bed for weeks at a time with fever and runny nose. Something always arose to stop me from working at home. To top it off, one evening two weeks ago, I was working hard at home trying to be creative so I would have something to say in this darn report, when a neighbor's dog ate the last of our guinea pigs, and that began a crisis that lasted for 3 days and ruined the few thoughts I had.

  Well, so much for the research summary. Maybe next year will be better.

  References[1] Ithacating. Ithaca Journal Limeric Contest, April 1981. (Finalist)

  — David Gries · June 1, 1981 · Permalink
• Voting: - 5 +
  Schneider: Which DeWitt are we talking about?
  Gries: I thought I was DeWitt around here.
  — David Gries · Feb. 26, 1981 · Permalink
• Voting: - 6 +
  If I can't read it, tell me.
  — David Gries, On his writing on the board · Sept. 6, 1979 · Permalink
• Voting: - 8 +
  Student: Could you lower the blinds, please?
  Gries: Are you sure it's not my brilliance that's blinding you?
  — David Gries · May 26, 1979 · Permalink
• Voting: - 3 +
  Gries: ... "dereferencing" and "ref-referencing"? ... "anti-dereferencing"? ...
  Student: How about "referencing"?
  Gries: That's too simple.
  — David Gries · April 25, 1979 · Permalink
• Voting: - 7 +
  Student: In the recursive Towers of Hanoi program, how do you prove that you never put a disk on a smaller disk?
  Gries: You prove it by recursion
  Student: You prove it by recursion?
  Gries: Sure, you just say, "By recursion."
  — David Gries · Oct. 17, 1978 · Permalink
• Voting: - 1 +
  The only reason we're here and you're there is that we're older than you.
  — David Gries, To first-year students · May 3, 1978 · Permalink
• Voting: - 29 +
  Gries: Could you explain where the term modal comes from?
  Constable: No.
  Gries: Thank you.
  — David Gries · Nov. 3, 1977 · Permalink

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