A person won't become proficient at something until he or she has done it many times. In other words., if you want someone to be really good at building a software system, he or she will have to have built 10 or more systems of that type. -- Philip Greenspun
To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. -- author unknown (quoted in `Robust Systems', Gerald Jay Suseman)
Some people suggest that machines would be friendlier if input could be in a natural language. But natural language is probably the worst kind of input because it can be quite ambiguous. The process of retrieving information from the computer would be so time-consuming that you would be better off spending that time getting the information directly from an expert. -- Gary Kildall (inventor of CP/M, one of the first OS for the micro).
Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. (I have made this letter so long only because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.) -- Blaise Pascal (Lettres Provinciales)
As builders and creators finding the perfect solution should not be our main goal. We should find the perfect problem. -- Isaac (blog comment)
C++ is history repeated as tragedy. Java is history repeated as farce. -- Scott McKay
People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily. –Zig Ziglar
If you want to achieve greatness stop asking for permission. ~Anonymous
The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success. ~Bruce Feirstein
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. ~Albert Einstein