We now come to the decisive step of mathematical abstraction: we forget about what the symbols stand for. ...[The mathematician] need not be idle; there are many operations which he may carry out with these symbols, without ever having to look at the things they stand for. -- Hermann Weyl, The Mathematical Way of Thinking

Write it properly first. It's easier to make a correct program fast, than to make a fast program correct. -- http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/

A tail call allows a function to return the result of another function without leaving an entry on the stack. Tail recursion is a specific case of tail calling. -- ASPN : Python Cookbook : Explicit Tail Call

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

There is one meaning [for static in C]: a global variable that is invisible outside the current scope, be it a function or a file. -- Paolo Bonzini

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

Change your thoughts and you change your world. –Norman Vincent Peale

I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse. –Florence Nightingale

Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life. ~Dr. APJ Kalam

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame. –Erica Jong