So the mere constraint of staying in regular contact with us will push
you to make things happen, because otherwise you'll be embarrassed to
tell us that you haven't done anything new since the last time we
talked.
-- Paul Graham (a talk at Y Combinator, for startup creators).
Je ne vous impose aucune contrainte, aucune limite. Surprenez-moi,
étonnez-moi, défiez-moi, défiez-vous vous-même. Vous avez le choix: vous
pouvez rester dans l'ombre ou en sortir en étant parmis les trop rares
exceptions à avoir réussi. L'heure est venue d'aller bien au delà de
votre potentiel. L'heure est venue maintenant de descendre vraiment en
vous. L'heure est venue de démontrer pourquoi vous êtes l'élite, les
quelques élus, les rares lueurs qui offrent à cette compagnie son
caractère exceptionnel, sa luminescence.
-- Le PDG de NURV, dans "Anti-trust".
Another feature about this guy is his low threshold of boredom. He'll
pick up on a task and work frantically at it, accomplishing wonders in a
short time and then get bored and drop it before its properly finished.
He'll do nothing but strum his guitar and lie around in bed for several
days after. Thats also part of the pattern too; periods of frenetic
activity followed by periods of melancholia, withdrawal and inactivity.
This is a bipolar personality.
-- The bipolar lisp programmer
Workers of the world, the chains that bind you are not held in place by
a ruling class, a "superior" race, by society, the state, or a leader.
They are held in place by none other than yourself. Those who seek to
exploit are not themselves free, for they place no value in freedom. Who
is it that really employs you and commands you to pick up your daily
load? And who is it that you allow to pass judgment on the adequacy of
your toil? Who have you empowered to dangle the carrot before you and
threaten with disapproval? Who, when you wake each morning, sends you
off to what you call your work?
Is there an "I want to" behind all your "I have to," or have you been so
long forgotten to yourself that "I want" exists only as an idea in your
head? If you have disconnected from your soul's desire and are drowning
in an ocean of "have to," then rise up and overthrow your master. Begin
the journey toward emancipation. Work only in such a way that you are
truly self-employed.
-- Tim Gallwey, The inner game of work
I think it is wise, and only honest, to warn you that my goal is
immodest. It is not my purpose to "transfer knowledge" to you that,
subsequently, you can forget again. My purpose is no less than to
effectuate in each of you a noticeable, irreversable change. I want you
to gain, for the rest of your lives, the insight that beautiful proofs
are not "found" by trial anf error but are the result of a consciously
applied design discipline. I want you to raise your quality standards. I
mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and
dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and
say to yourself "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well, that would
be enough immortality for me.
-- E. W. Dijkstra
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
For complex systems, the compiler and development environment need to be
in the same language that its supporting. It's the only way to grow
code.
-- Alan Kay
We now come to the decisive step of mathematical abstraction: we forget
about what the symbols stand for. ...[The mathematician] need not be
idle; there are many operations which he may carry out with these
symbols, without ever having to look at the things they stand for.
-- Hermann Weyl, The Mathematical Way of Thinking
You think you know when you learn, are more sure when you can write,
even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.
-- Alan J. Perlis (Epigrams in programming)
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
Windows NT addresses 2 Gigabytes of RAM, which is more than any
application will ever need.
-- Microsoft, on the development of Windows NT, 1992
Attitude is no substitute for competence.
-- Eric S. Raymond, How to become a hacker
The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he
wants to do it [Leadership].
-- Dwight D. Enseinhover.
Any code of your own that you haven’t looked at for six or more months
might as well have been written by someone else.
-- Eagleson’s Law
In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume
that it is true and try to find out what it could be true of.
-- George Miller
Talkers are no good doers.
-- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"
So the mere constraint of staying in regular contact with us will push
you to make things happen, because otherwise you'll be embarrassed to
tell us that you haven't done anything new since the last time we
talked.
-- Paul Graham (a talk at Y Combinator, for startup creators).
The function of good software is to make the complex appear to be
simple.
-- Grady Booch
You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it
right, it is obvious that it is right.
-- Richard Feynman
I had to learn how to teach less, so that more could be learned.
-- Tim Gallwey, The inner game of work
Je ne vous impose aucune contrainte, aucune limite. Surprenez-moi,
étonnez-moi, défiez-moi, défiez-vous vous-même. Vous avez le choix: vous
pouvez rester dans l'ombre ou en sortir en étant parmis les trop rares
exceptions à avoir réussi. L'heure est venue d'aller bien au delà de
votre potentiel. L'heure est venue maintenant de descendre vraiment en
vous. L'heure est venue de démontrer pourquoi vous êtes l'élite, les
quelques élus, les rares lueurs qui offrent à cette compagnie son
caractère exceptionnel, sa luminescence.
-- Le PDG de NURV, dans "Anti-trust".
Never do the impossible. People will expect you to do it forever after.
-- pigsandfishes.com
Premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it)
in programming.
-- Donald Knuth
Acknowledging the negative doesn't mean sniveling [whining, complaining]; it
means facing the truth and then moving on.
-- George Leonard, Mastery.
Lisp is a programmable programming language.
-- John Foderaro
If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough.
-- Mario Andretti
Attitude is no substitute for competence.
-- Eric S. Raymond, How to become a hacker
Another feature about this guy is his low threshold of boredom. He'll
pick up on a task and work frantically at it, accomplishing wonders in a
short time and then get bored and drop it before its properly finished.
He'll do nothing but strum his guitar and lie around in bed for several
days after. Thats also part of the pattern too; periods of frenetic
activity followed by periods of melancholia, withdrawal and inactivity.
This is a bipolar personality.
-- The bipolar lisp programmer
Show, don't tell.
-- unknown
Workers of the world, the chains that bind you are not held in place by
a ruling class, a "superior" race, by society, the state, or a leader.
They are held in place by none other than yourself. Those who seek to
exploit are not themselves free, for they place no value in freedom. Who
is it that really employs you and commands you to pick up your daily
load? And who is it that you allow to pass judgment on the adequacy of
your toil? Who have you empowered to dangle the carrot before you and
threaten with disapproval? Who, when you wake each morning, sends you
off to what you call your work?
Is there an "I want to" behind all your "I have to," or have you been so
long forgotten to yourself that "I want" exists only as an idea in your
head? If you have disconnected from your soul's desire and are drowning
in an ocean of "have to," then rise up and overthrow your master. Begin
the journey toward emancipation. Work only in such a way that you are
truly self-employed.
-- Tim Gallwey, The inner game of work
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
-- unknown
Only make new mistakes.
-- Phil Dourado
I think it is wise, and only honest, to warn you that my goal is
immodest. It is not my purpose to "transfer knowledge" to you that,
subsequently, you can forget again. My purpose is no less than to
effectuate in each of you a noticeable, irreversable change. I want you
to gain, for the rest of your lives, the insight that beautiful proofs
are not "found" by trial anf error but are the result of a consciously
applied design discipline. I want you to raise your quality standards. I
mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and
dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and
say to yourself "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well, that would
be enough immortality for me.
-- E. W. Dijkstra
Simplicity and pragmatism beat complexity and theory any day.
-- Dennis (blog comment)
Mistakes were made.
-- Ronald Reagan
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
For complex systems, the compiler and development environment need to be
in the same language that its supporting. It's the only way to grow
code.
-- Alan Kay
We now come to the decisive step of mathematical abstraction: we forget
about what the symbols stand for. ...[The mathematician] need not be
idle; there are many operations which he may carry out with these
symbols, without ever having to look at the things they stand for.
-- Hermann Weyl, The Mathematical Way of Thinking
You think you know when you learn, are more sure when you can write,
even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.
-- Alan J. Perlis (Epigrams in programming)
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
Ils ne sont pas forts parce qu'ils sont forts. Ils sont forts parce que
nous sommes faibles.
-- Ragala Khalid
Are you willing to wear your white belt?
-- George Leonard, Mastery.