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

Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter. -- Eric Raymond

Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve. -- Alan J. Perlis (Epigrams in programmi ng)

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

If we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as lines produced but as lines spent. -- Edsger Dijkstra

Remember: you are alone. Every time you can get help from someone, it is an opportunity: you should eagerly size it. But then, promptly return to normal mode: you are alone and you must be prepared to solve every problem yourself. -- Eric KEDJI

Your problem isn’t the problem. Your reaction is the problem. ~Anonymous

An unexamined life is not worth living. –Socrates

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. –Alice Walker

If the wind will not serve, take to the oars. –Latin Proverb