While I’ve always appreciated beautiful code, I share Jonathan’s concern about studying it too much. I think studying beauty in music and painting has led us to modern classical music and painting that the majority of us just don’t get. Beauty can be seen when it emerges, but isn’t something to strive for in isolation of a larger context. In the software world, the larger context would be the utility of the software to the end user. -- [A comment on a blog]
All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection. -- Butler Lampson
If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra
Ce n’est que par les beaux sentiments qu’on parvient à la fortune ! -- Charles Baudelaire, Conseils aux jeunes littérateurs.
It is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. -- Edsger Dijkstra
Being a programmer is the same way. The only way to be a good programmer is to write code. When you realize you haven't been writing much code lately, and it seems like all you do is brag about code you wrote in the past, and people start looking at you funny while you're shooting your mouth off, realize it's because they know. They might not even know they know, but they know. So, yes, doing what you love brings success, and by all means, throw yourself a nice big party, buy yourself a nice car, soak up the adulation of an adoring crowd. Then shut the fuck up and get back to work. -- Sincerity Theory
Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. –George Addair
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. –Steve Jobs
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. –Maya Angelou
If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. –Vincent Van Gogh