Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are–by definition–not smart enough to debug it. In order to understand recursion, one must first understand recursion. Computers are like bikinis. They save people a lot of guesswork. The only people who have anything to fear from free software are those whose products are worth even less.

Fifty years of programming language research, and we end up with. There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses. Programming is like sex. One mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life. Complexity kills. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges, and it causes end-user and administrator frustration.

Deleted code is debugged code. It’s not a bug – it’s an undocumented feature. Programming is like sex. One mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life. That’s what’s cool about working with computers. They don’t argue, they remember everything, and they don’t drink all your beer. The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.

Good code is its own best documentation. The first of the code accounts for the first of the development time. The remaining of the code accounts for the other of the development time. True innovation often comes from the small startup who is lean enough to launch a market but lacks the heft to own it. The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it’s too late. It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC. As potential programmers, they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.


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