That quote explains why so many regular navy brass, Pentagon bureaucrats and defense contractors hated him. He was never satisfied with less than the best and always believed it could be better. Not a popular in an environment that is all go along to get along.

I'm in when I see it!

I learned programming exactly the wrong way, but I'm now pretty broadly "programmable". I learned BASIC first (high school/college), then FORTRAN (collage), then COBOL (summer job). I did APL (high school) and LISP (grad school). LISP was the first time I really got at ease with the language, rather than fighting it. I tried C, but couldn't get it, then a friend told me to learn Pascal first. That was a turning point. Data types, pointers, structures and objects! Ahhhh. Calling a function with a pointer, so cool. Then I picked up C easily (first job), and it because a religion. I just loved C after that. I taught my buddy C in my first job. We became formatting nazis, Upper case globals, indentation, blah blah. Like a youthful gang! He left and became a pretty successful programmer, and also Apple zealot, like I was back then.

Agree APL is a mess, unnecessary now with Maple, Mathematica, MathCAD and MatLab or even C libraries. I looked over FORTH once. Not sure why. Think it was for an HP data acq system.

I thought COBOL was overly wordy. So much to type to do simple things. If you understand math and functions, I thought COBOL was an impediment. I saw no advantage for it over FORTRAN, or even the structured BASIC languages that emerged (of course, much newer). I agree it served its purpose.

I'm in management now, so not much time at work for programming. We do a lot of simulation of electrical systems. I really likes SABER/VHDL-AMS, but it has gone away. Simplorer took up where SABER left off, but it doesn't have the user base, so we are using MatLab/Simulink, which now has a charge-conservative toolset in SimScape, where you can write VHDL-AMS again! I do get to mess with this, but it is so infrequent, I am a klutz. On a good day, I get to look over results, and task people to make new runs.

OK
I just posted a discussion which so far, hasn't been disseminated in the Gulch. Oh well, I'll give it a shot.

I drank what?

The bad ones are just when immigrants want to come here for the prosperity, but bring their "culture" with them. Hard work and great thoughts are one thing. Making the US a multilingual socialist state is quite another.

He had so much power garnered via congressional support. He was more powerful than the CNO/Sec Nav.SecDef, and the modern guys were just waiting for an excuse to get rid of him.
From what I hear, he should've retired, but the issues with General Dynamics at the time may have made him too angry to let go. Too bad he couldn't have done it on his terms.

What is your programing background? Forms of COBOL have been used for over 50 years. I didn't like it because I am more a math guy. A lot of so called good languages can be called yucky by those who don't like them or find them too cumbersome. I would like APL or LISP or FORTH but after spending time with them found them yucky due to the near unreadableness of APL, too much parenthesis clutter for LISP, and hard to use RPN stack manipulation for FORTH.
COBAL has served its purpose and is slowly dying off.
Now I just use Mathematica which uses Wolfram Language.

You are right. It is a narrow definition as philosophy goes. Who to have in a discussion group? Great question! Why not post it?

Remember Socrates?

Agreed about the infusion of immigrants, with the emphasis on "desire to join and contribute."

Defining a philosophy in that limited sense, I would agree. But, I don't think that could be called a philosophy in common usage. Not really a point to argue about. Hyman Rickover was a brilliant man and one I would have loved to have had dinner with, along with a number of other greats. You know, that might be a good topic. If you could have a discussion group consisting of anyone throughout history who would you choose? We all know one, but who else?

Oh, I think you are very wrong that Rickover did not create a philosophy of responsibility, at least in my definition. He made a couple of generations of officers, sailors and related civilians think entirely differently, and in a manner to safely capture the power of fission. People hated him for it, but the group that learned from him are unique and uniquely capable.

I'm not sure a nuclear navy can be deemed a philosophy. Rickover was eccentric to put it mildly. Was Rand? You bet. At least by what we call "normal." But if you look at most obvious geniuses, you can hardly find any of them who are not "eccentric."

Great man. The generation he left carried on his mantras, but I wonder how long it will continue.

Grace Hopper was very cool too. Love the idea of microseconds in the length of wires! However, COBOL was not a good language. I agree with her aim, but that language is just yucky!

Think I have seen that one. It has an actor playing Rickover right? Very good.

I never met Rickover, but know many that had. Some of his first NR leaders, I knew pretty well. One told me that he learned more from Rickover than he learned from his parents!

Great quote. I use it often when leaders blame their workers. It is so perfect. Explains so much.

I went through Navy Nuclear Power School in 1982, Class 8203. I was section leader for Section 12 (ET's) and had a great time as I was a Chemical Engineering major before I ran out of money and had to drop out. It was a tough but fair school and we only had a 40% graduation rate in that class. Anyway, being a Navy Nuc, I revered Admiral Rickover, he was the father of the program I was in. I actually got to meet the revered Admiral (retired) a couple of times. On a side note, I also got to meet Admiral Grace Hopper. Anyway, I was still in school when they eventually got Rickover to retire (forced), I seriously think he would have stayed until he died if they let him. He started as a Navy Engineering Officer and he had a thing about education. He died in 1986 and the entire Nuclear Navy grieved the loss.

I attended sub school back in 1984 and having grown up being a fan of Admiral Rickover I was surprised at the complete lack of "history" we were taught about his accomplishments. It seems the USN had virtually whitewashed him at that point. There is a fairly good PBS "sort of" documentary called "Rickover: The Birth of Nuclear Power" I found on ITunes a while back that highlights is eccentricities. As a bit of an eccentric myself I really appreciate that.

I have a long time friend who commanded nuclear submarines and became an admiral. He had much direct interaction with Rickover back in the day.
My friend always has this quote somewhere in his living or working space, and many today have not idea what this means:

"RESPONSIBILITY

“Responsibility is a unique concept... You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you... If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion, or ignorance or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible.”
― Hyman G. Rickover"