What I didn't understand was that the value of some new acquisition
wasn't the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it.
It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an extremely illiquid
asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got
so cheaply, what difference does it make what it's "worth?" The only way
you're ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. And if you
don't have any immediate use for it, you probably never will.
-- Paul Graham
Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature,
because God is not capricious or arbitrary.
-- Frederick P. Brooks, No Sliver Bullet.
More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without
necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason - including
blind stupidity.
-- W.A. Wulf
Mastering isn’t a survival instinct; it’s an urge to excel. Mastering is
one of the experiences that delineates us from animals. It is striving
to be more tomorrow than we are today; to perfectly pitch the ball over
home plate; to craft the perfect sentence in an article; to open the
oven and feel the warm, richly-scented cloud telling you dinner is going
to be absolutely extraordinary. We humans crave perfection, to be
masters of our domain, to distinguish ourselves by sheer skill and
prowess.
-- Joesgoals.com
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
Since programmers create programs out of nothing, imagination is our
only limitation. Thus, in the world of programming, the hero is the one
who has great vision. Paul Graham is one of our contemporary heroes. He
has the ability to embrace the vision, and to express it plainly. His
works are my favorites, especially the ones describing language design.
He explains secrets of programming, languages, and human nature that can
only be learned from the hacker experience. This book shows you his
great vision, and tells you the truth about the nature of hacking.
-- Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto, creator of Ruby
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
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)
The president was visiting NASA headquarters and stopped to talk to a
man who was holding a mop. “And what do you do?” he asked. The man, a
janitor, replied, “I’m helping to put a man on the moon, sir.”
-- The little book of leadership
What I didn't understand was that the value of some new acquisition
wasn't the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it.
It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an extremely illiquid
asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got
so cheaply, what difference does it make what it's "worth?" The only way
you're ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. And if you
don't have any immediate use for it, you probably never will.
-- Paul Graham
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.
A great lathe operator commands several times the wage of an average
lathe operator, but a great writer of software code is worth 10,000
times the price of an average software writer.
-- Bill Gates
I think that a lot of programmers are ignoring an important point when
people talk about reducing code repetition on large projects.
Part of the idea is that large projects are intrinsically wrong. That
you should be looking at making a number of smaller projects that are
composable, even if you never end up reusing one of those smaller
projects elsewhere.
-- Dan Nugent
What I didn't understand was that the value of some new acquisition
wasn't the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it.
It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an extremely illiquid
asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got
so cheaply, what difference does it make what it's "worth?" The only way
you're ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. And if you
don't have any immediate use for it, you probably never will.
-- Paul Graham
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming
high enough.
-- Alan Kay
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should therefore be
regarded as a criminal offense.
-- E.W. Dijkstra
In terms of energy, it's better to make a wrong choice than none at all.
-- George Leonard, Mastery.
Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature,
because God is not capricious or arbitrary.
-- Frederick P. Brooks, No Sliver Bullet.
Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
-- Thomas Edison
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the
necessary may speak.
-- Hans Hofmann
More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without
necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason - including
blind stupidity.
-- W.A. Wulf
The choice of the university is mostly important for the piece of paper
you get at the end. The education you get depends on you.
-- Andreas Zwinkau
Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected
without, I thought, proper consideration.
-- Stan Kelly-Bootle
Mastering isn’t a survival instinct; it’s an urge to excel. Mastering is
one of the experiences that delineates us from animals. It is striving
to be more tomorrow than we are today; to perfectly pitch the ball over
home plate; to craft the perfect sentence in an article; to open the
oven and feel the warm, richly-scented cloud telling you dinner is going
to be absolutely extraordinary. We humans crave perfection, to be
masters of our domain, to distinguish ourselves by sheer skill and
prowess.
-- Joesgoals.com
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
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder.
Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
-- Erik Naggum
We are the sum of our behaviours; excellence therefore is not an act but
a habit.
-- Aristotle.
All creativity is an extended form of a joke.
-- Alan Kay
First learn computer science and all the theory. Next develop a
programming style. Then forget all that and just hack.
-- George Carrette
Since programmers create programs out of nothing, imagination is our
only limitation. Thus, in the world of programming, the hero is the one
who has great vision. Paul Graham is one of our contemporary heroes. He
has the ability to embrace the vision, and to express it plainly. His
works are my favorites, especially the ones describing language design.
He explains secrets of programming, languages, and human nature that can
only be learned from the hacker experience. This book shows you his
great vision, and tells you the truth about the nature of hacking.
-- Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto, creator of Ruby
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
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)
The president was visiting NASA headquarters and stopped to talk to a
man who was holding a mop. “And what do you do?” he asked. The man, a
janitor, replied, “I’m helping to put a man on the moon, sir.”
-- The little book of leadership
Premature abstraction is an equally grevious sin as premature
optimization.
-- Keith Devens
The best is the enemy of the good.
-- Voltaire
What I didn't understand was that the value of some new acquisition
wasn't the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it.
It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an extremely illiquid
asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got
so cheaply, what difference does it make what it's "worth?" The only way
you're ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. And if you
don't have any immediate use for it, you probably never will.
-- Paul Graham
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.
A great lathe operator commands several times the wage of an average
lathe operator, but a great writer of software code is worth 10,000
times the price of an average software writer.
-- Bill Gates
The best is the enemy of the good.
-- Voltaire
I think that a lot of programmers are ignoring an important point when
people talk about reducing code repetition on large projects.
Part of the idea is that large projects are intrinsically wrong. That
you should be looking at making a number of smaller projects that are
composable, even if you never end up reusing one of those smaller
projects elsewhere.
-- Dan Nugent
Just like carpentry, measure twice cut once.
-- Super-sizing YouTube with Python (Mike Solomon, [email protected])
Fools! Don't they know that tears are a woman's most effective weapon?
-- Catwoman (The Batman TV Series, episode 83)