It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC. As potential programmers, they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. -- E. W. Dijkstra

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. -- Mark Twain

Well then. How could you possibly live without automated refactoring tools? How else could you coordinate the caterpillar-like motions of all Java’s identical tiny legs, its thousands of similar parts? I’ll tell you how: Ruby is a butterfly. -- Stevey, Refactoring Trilogy, Part 1.

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)

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

Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex, intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple, stupid behavior. -- Dee Hock, Birth of the Chaordic Age

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. ~David Brinkley

The mind is everything. What you think you become. –Buddha

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato

If you want to achieve greatness stop asking for permission. ~Anonymous