The function of good software is to make the complex appear to be simple. -- Grady Booch

What I didn't understand was that the value of some new acquisition wasn't the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it. It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an extremely illiquid asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got so cheaply, what difference does it make what it's "worth?" The only way you're ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. And if you don't have any immediate use for it, you probably never will. -- Paul Graham

Functional programming is to algorithms as the ubiquitous little black dress is to women's fashion. -- Mark Tarver (of "The bipolar Lisp programmer" fame)

All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection. -- Butler Lampson

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

Well then. How could you possibly live without automated refactoring tools? How else could you coordinate the caterpillar-like motions of all Java’s identical tiny legs, its thousands of similar parts? I’ll tell you how: Ruby is a butterfly. -- Stevey, Refactoring Trilogy, Part 1.

Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. –Jesus

If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money. –Abigail Van Buren

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. –Chinese Proverb

Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out. ~John Wooden