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Bonne bosse et reste le boss.
-- Darryl Amedon

Java and C++ make you think that the new ideas are like the old ones.
Java is the most distressing thing to hit computing since MS-DOS.
-- Alan Kay

Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to
smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams.
-- Mary Ellen Kelly

  ·  5 years ago Reveal Comment

A guideline in the process of stepwise refinement should be the
principle to decompose decisions as much as possible, to untangle
aspects which are only seemingly interdependent, and to defer those
decisions which concern details of representation as long as possible.
-- Niklaus Wirth

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under
robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's
cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated;
but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for
they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
-- C.S. Lewis

Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.
-- Brian Kernigan

Lisp has jokingly been called "the most intelligent way to misuse a
computer". I think that description is a great compliment because it
transmits the full flavor of liberation: it has assisted a number of our
most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts.
-- Edsger Dijkstra, CACM, 15:10

  ·  5 years ago Reveal Comment

Humans differ from animals to the degree that they are not merely an end
result of their conditioning, but are able to reflect on their
experiences and strategies, and apply insight to make changes in the way
they live to modify the outcome.
-- SlideTrombone (comment on "Programming can ruin your life")

Good programmers use their brains, but good guidelines save us having to
think out every case.
-- Francis Glassborow

Ce n’est que par les beaux sentiments qu’on parvient à la fortune !
-- Charles Baudelaire, Conseils aux jeunes littérateurs.

  ·  5 years ago Reveal Comment

The proof is by reductio ad absurdum, and reductio ad absurdum, which
Euclid loved so much, is one of a mathematician’s finest weapons. It is
a far finer gambit than any chess gambit: a chess player may offer the
sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers the
game.
-- G. H. Hardy

It is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally
vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.
-- Edsger Dijkstra

I had to learn how to teach less, so that more could be learned.
-- Tim Gallwey, The inner game of work

  ·  5 years ago Reveal Comment

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.
-- Albert Einstein

The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he
wants to do it [Leadership].
-- Dwight D. Enseinhover.

If I tell you I'm good, you would probably think I'm boasting. If I tell
you I'm no good, you know I'm lying.
-- Bruce Lee

Humans aren't rational -- they rationalize. And I don't just mean "some
of them" or "other people". I'm talking about everyone. We have a "logic
engine" in our brains, but for the most part, it's not the one in the
driver's seat -- instead it operates after the fact, generating
rationalizations and excuses for our behavior.
-- Paul Buchheit

The only constant in the world of hi-tech is change.
-- Mark Ward

The job of a leader today is not to create followers. It’s to create
more leaders.
-- Ralph Nader

New eyes have X-ray vision. [someone that hasn't written it is more
likely to spot the bug. "someone" can be you after a break]
-- William S. Annis

An expert is, according to my working definition "someone who doesn't
need to look up answers to easy questions".
-- Eric Lippert.

The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.
-- Elie Wiesel

Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot.
If you compete with slaves you become a slave.
-- Paul Graham and Norbert Weiner, respectively

The hardest part of design ... is keeping features out.
-- Donald Norman

Being a programmer is the same way. The only way to be a good programmer
is to write code. When you realize you haven't been writing much code
lately, and it seems like all you do is brag about code you wrote in the
past, and people start looking at you funny while you're shooting your
mouth off, realize it's because they know. They might not even know they
know, but they know. So, yes, doing what you love brings success, and by
all means, throw yourself a nice big party, buy yourself a nice car,
soak up the adulation of an adoring crowd. Then shut the fuck up and get
back to work.
-- Sincerity Theory

While I’ve always appreciated beautiful code, I share Jonathan’s concern
about studying it too much. I think studying beauty in music and
painting has led us to modern classical music and painting that the
majority of us just don’t get. Beauty can be seen when it emerges, but
isn’t something to strive for in isolation of a larger context. In the
software world, the larger context would be the utility of the software
to the end user.
-- [A comment on a blog]

Software is like sex: It’s better when it’s free.
-- Linus Torvalds

Side projects are less masturbatory than reading RSS, often more
useful than MobileMe, more educational than the comments on Reddit,
and usually more fun than listening to keynotes.
-- Chris Wanstrath