'[Richard Hamming, the inventor of error-correcting codes] was a
department head, but there were no people in his department, … He
told me that he had worked hard to achieve this combination of
suitable title without responsibility.'
'He had a fairly low opinion of most programmers, who he felt were
poorly trained if at all. I can still hear him saying “We give them
a dictionary and grammar rules, and we say, ‘Kid, you’re now a great
programmer.’”
'He felt that programming should be taught as writing was
taught. There should be a notion of style that separated poor code
from good code, and programmers should be taught how to write well
and appreciate good style.
'Dick retired from Bell Labs in 1976 and went to the Naval
Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where he taught until
his death early in 1998 at the age of 82. The story goes that one of
his courses there was known to students as “Hamming on Hamming,”
'He used to say that Friday afternoons were for thinking great
thoughts, so he sat back and though.'