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

Only bad designers blame their failings on the users. -- unknown

While I’ve always appreciated beautiful code, I share Jonathan’s concern about studying it too much. I think studying beauty in music and painting has led us to modern classical music and painting that the majority of us just don’t get. Beauty can be seen when it emerges, but isn’t something to strive for in isolation of a larger context. In the software world, the larger context would be the utility of the software to the end user. -- [A comment on a blog]

La connaissance d'un défaut ne l'enlève pas, elle nous torture jusqu'à sa correction. -- Daniel Lovewin (Guillaume Kpotufe)

Well, if you talk about programming to a group of programmers who use the same language, they can become almost evangelistic about the language. They form a tight-knit community, hold to certain beliefs, and follow certain rules in their programming. It’s like a church with a programming language for a Bible. -- Gary Kildall (inventor of CP/M, one of the first OS for the micro).

Philosophy: the finding of bad reasons for what one believes by instinct. -- Brave New World (paraphrased)

We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. –Marie Curie

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. ~Lolly Daskal