It’s a problem if the design doesn’t let you add features at a later date. If you have to redo a program, the hours you spend can cause you to lose your competitive edge. A flexible program demonstrates the difference between a good designer and someone who is just getting a piece of code out. -- Gary Kildall (inventor of CP/M, one of the first OS for the micro).

Humans differ from animals to the degree that they are not merely an end result of their conditioning, but are able to reflect on their experiences and strategies, and apply insight to make changes in the way they live to modify the outcome. -- SlideTrombone (comment on "Programming can ruin your life")

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

You have to write for your audience. I would never write (1..5).map &'*2' in Java when I could write ListFactoryFactory.getListFactoryFromResource( new ResourceName('com.javax.magnitudes.integers'). setLowerBound(1).setUpperBound(5).setStep(1).applyFunctor( new Functor () { public void eval (x) { return x * 2; } })) I'm simplifying, of course, I've left out the security and logging wrappers. -- Reginald Braithwait

The minute you put the blame on someone else you’ve switch things from being a problem you can control to a problem outside of your control. -- engtech (internetducttape.com)

What we choose to fight is so tiny! What fights us is so great! ... When we win it's with small things, and the triumph itself makes us small. ... Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings. -- Rainer Maria Rilke, The Man Watching.

It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live. –Mae Jemison

Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs. –Farrah Gray

The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same. ~Colin R. Davis

Education costs money. But then so does ignorance. –Sir Claus Moser