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RE: Bye Steem!
Its a shame that the students of our generation grew up with windows and
mice because that tainted our mindset not to think in terms of powerful
tools. Some of us are just so tainted that we will never recover.
-- Jeffrey Mark Siskind [email protected] in comp.lang.lisp
Let me try to get this straight: Lisp is a language for describing
algorithms. This was JohnMcCarthy's original purpose, anyway: to build
something more convenient than a Turing machine. Lisp is not about file,
socket or GUI programming - Lisp is about expressive power. (For
example, you can design multiple object systems for Lisp, in Lisp. Or
implement the now-fashionable AOP. Or do arbitrary transformations on
parsed source code.) If you don't value expressive power, Lisp ain't for
you. I, personally, would prefer Lisp to not become mainstream: this
would necessarily involve a dumbing down.
-- VladimirSlepnev
We control complexity by building abstractions that hide details when
appropriate. We control complexity by establishing conventional
interfaces that enable us to construct systems by combining standard,
well-understood pieces in a ``mix and match'' way. We control complexity
by establishing new languages for describing a design, each of which
emphasizes particular aspects of the design and deemphasizes others.
-- Alan J. Perlis
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Functional programming is to algorithms as the ubiquitous little black
dress is to women's fashion.
-- Mark Tarver (of "The bipolar Lisp programmer" fame)
To solve your problems you must learn new skills, adapt new thought
patterns, and become a different person than you were before that
problem. God has crafted you for success. In the middle of every
adversity lie your best opportunities. Discover it, build upon it and
move forward in your journey to live an extraordinary life. You owe it
to yourself to live a great life. Don’t let negative thoughts pull you
down. Be grateful and open to learn and grow.
-- http://secretsofstudying.com/
All great things require great dedication.
-- Chuck Norris(?)
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
improbable, must be the truth.
-- Sherlock Holmes
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a
violent psychopath who knows where you live.
-- Martin Golding
Why teach drawing to accountants? Because drawing class doesn't just
teach people to draw. It teaches them to be more observant. There's no
company on earth that wouldn't benefit from having people become more
observant.
-- Randy S. Nelson (dean of Pixar University)
Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature,
because God is not capricious or arbitrary.
-- Frederick P. Brooks, No Sliver Bullet.
My dream is that people adopt it on its own merits. We're not trying to
bend Ruby on Rails to fit the enterprise, we're encouraging enterprises
to bend to Ruby on Rails. Come if you like it, stay away if you don't.
We're not going head over heels to accommodate the enterprise or to lure
them away from Java. That's how you end up with Java, if you start
bending to special interest groups.
-- David Heinemeier Hansson (Ruby On Rails' creator)
A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longuer anything to add, but when there is no longuer anything to take
away.
-- Antoine de St Exupery.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
-- unknown
Software is like sex: It’s better when it’s free.
-- Linus Torvalds
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should therefore be
regarded as a criminal offense.
-- E.W. Dijkstra
A society that puts equality -- in the sense of equality of outcome --
ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use
of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force,
introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use
it to promote their own interests.
-- Milton Friedman (Thomas Sowell: A Conflict of Visions, p130)
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
A no uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a yes merely
uttered to please or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
-- Mahatma Gandhi
To follow the path:
look to the master,
follow the master,
walk with the master,
see through the master,
become the master.
-- Modern zen Poem
The general principle for complexity design is this: Think locally, act
locally.
-- Richard P. Gabriel & Ron Goldman, Mob Software: The Erotic Life of Code
In OO, it's the data that is the "important" thing: you define the class
which contains member data, and only incidentally contains code for
manipulating the object. In FP, it's the code that's important: you
define a function which contains code for working with the data, and
only incidentally define what the data is.
-- almkgor, on reddit
If we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as lines
produced but as lines spent.
-- Edsger Dijkstra
As builders and creators finding the perfect solution should not be our
main goal. We should find the perfect problem.
-- Isaac (blog comment)
Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring
aircraft building progress by weight.
-- Bill Gates
Everybody makes their own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it ain't
fun -- it's entertainment.
-- David Mamet (as relayed by Joss Whedon)
Linux is only free if your time has no value.
-- Jamie Zawinski
The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and
Hubris.
-- Larry Wall (Programming Perl)
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only
off by a bit.
-- Anonymous
All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky.
-- Joel Spolsky (The Law of Leaky Abstractions)
Resume writing is just like dating, or applying for a bank loan, in that
nobody wants you if you're desperate.
-- Steve Yegge.
Never do the impossible. People will expect you to do it forever after.
-- pigsandfishes.com
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from
him.
-- Galileo Galilei
Processors don't get better so that they can have more free time.
Processors get better so you can have more free time.
-- LeCamarade (freeshells.ch)
If we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as lines
produced but as lines spent.
-- Edsger Dijkstra
There really is no learning without doing.
-- Roger Schank, Engines for Education
Something Confusing about "Hard":
It's tempting to think that if it's hard, then it's valuable.
Most valuable things are hard.
Most hard things are completely useless -- (picture of someone smashing
their head through concrete blocks kung-fu style).
Hard DOES NOT EQUATE TO BEING valuable.
Remember Friendster back in the day?
You'd sign in, invite friends, have 25 friends, go to their profile, and
then it'd show how you were connected to each one.
That's an impressive [some geeky CS jargon] Cone traversal of a tree -
100 million string comparisons per page -- it won't scale.
Used to take a minute per page to load, and Friendster died a painful
death.
MySpace -- not interested in solving problems
They use the shortcut of "Miss Fitzpatrick is in your extended network"
(i.e. even when you're not even signed up for MySpace)
They didn't solve the hard problem. But they make the more relevant
assumption that you want to be connected to hot women. [LOL]
Shows Alexa graph showing that in early 2005 Myspace took off, and
quickly bypassed Friendster and never looked back.
-- Max Levchin, PayPal founder, Talk at StartupSchool2007
Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it.
Geniuses remove it.
-- Alan J. Perlis (Epigrams in programming)
We really have to get over the idea that some stuff is just worth
knowing even if you never do anything with it. Human memories happily
erase stuff that has no purpose, so why try to fill up children's heads
with such stuff?
-- Roger Schank, Engines for Education
What do Americans look for in a car? I've heard many answers when I've
asked this question. The answers include excellent safety ratings, great
gas mileage, handling, and cornering ability, among others. I don't
believe any of these. That's because the first principle of the Culture
Code is that the only effective way to understand what people truly mean
is to ignore what they say. This is not to suggest that people
intentionally lie or misrepresent themselves. What it means is that,
when asked direct questions about their interests and preferences,
people tend to give answers they believe the questioner wants to hear.
Again, this is not because they intend to mislead. It is because people
respond to these questions with their cortexes, the parts of their
brains that control intelligence rather than emotion or instinct. They
ponder a question, they process a question, and when they deliver an
answer, it is the product of deliberation. They believe they are telling
the truth. A lie detector would confirm this. In most cases, however,
they aren't saying what they mean.
-- The culture code.
Courage is grace under pressure.
-- Ernest Hemingway