It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. -- Edsger Dijkstra

XML wasn't designed to be edited by humans on a regular basis. -- Guido van Rossum

What do Americans look for in a car? I've heard many answers when I've asked this question. The answers include excellent safety ratings, great gas mileage, handling, and cornering ability, among others. I don't believe any of these. That's because the first principle of the Culture Code is that the only effective way to understand what people truly mean is to ignore what they say. This is not to suggest that people intentionally lie or misrepresent themselves. What it means is that, when asked direct questions about their interests and preferences, people tend to give answers they believe the questioner wants to hear. Again, this is not because they intend to mislead. It is because people respond to these questions with their cortexes, the parts of their brains that control intelligence rather than emotion or instinct. They ponder a question, they process a question, and when they deliver an answer, it is the product of deliberation. They believe they are telling the truth. A lie detector would confirm this. In most cases, however, they aren't saying what they mean. -- The culture code.

Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live. -- Martin Golding

Always dive down into a problem and get your hands on the deepest issue behind the problem. All other considerations are to dismissed as "engineering details"; they can be sorted out after the basic problem has been solved. -- Chris Crawford

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. -- Thomas Jefferson

There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. –Roger Staubach

The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it. ~Henry Ford

It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. –Abraham Lincoln

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. –Booker T. Washington