For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. -- Aristotle.

Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. -- Alan J. Perlis (Epigrams in programming)

All creativity is an extended form of a joke. -- Alan Kay

State is the root of all evil. In particular functions with side effects should be avoided. -- OO Sucks (bluetail.com)

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

A hacker on a roll may be able to produce–in a period of a few months–something that a small development group (say, 7-8 people) would have a hard time getting together over a year. IBM used to report that certain programmers might be as much as 100 times as productive as other workers, or more. -- Peter Seebach

Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. –Les Brown

The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself. ~Mark Caine

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. –Amelia Earhart

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein