Erik Naggum Quotes

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It's not that Perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language rewards idiotic behavior in a way that no other language or tool has ever done.

Erik Naggum

Tools, Done, Rewards

"Can lisp do what perl does easily?". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. March 28, 2000.

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it's just that in C++ and the like, you don't trust anybody, and in CLOS you basically trust everybody. The practical result is that thieves and bums use C++ and nice people use CLOS.

Erik Naggum

Nice, People, Thieves

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If you are concerned about netiquette, you are either concerned about your own and follow good netiquette, or you are concerned about others and violate good netiquette by bothering people with your concern, as the only netiquette you can actually affect is your own.

Erik Naggum

People, Bother, Concern

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Getting C programmers to understand that they cause the computer to do less than minimum is intractable. … Ask him why he thinks he should be able to get away with unsafe code, core dumps, viruses, buffer overruns, undetected errors, etc., just because he wants speed.

Erik Naggum

Thinking, Errors, Etc

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They don't make poles long enough for me want to touch Microsoft products, and I don't want any mass-marketed game-playing device or Windows appliance near my desk or on my network. This is my workbench, dammit, it's not a pretty box to impress people with graphics and sounds. When I work at this system up to 12 hours a day, I'm profoundly uninterested in what user interface a novice user would prefer.

Erik Naggum

Games, Long, People

Re: Why lisp failed in the marketplace (Usenet article), groups.google.com. February 16, 1997.

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The novice-friendly software is more like a misbehaving dog: it shits on the floor, it destroys things, and stinks - the novice-friendly software embodies the opposite of what computer people have dreamed of for decades: artificial stupidity. It's more human.

Erik Naggum

Dog, Opposites, People

"Read the fine manual, please". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. November 14, 1997.

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Some people are little more than herd animals, flocking together whenever the world becomes uncomfortable … I am not one of those people. If I had a motto, it would probably be Herd thither, me hither.

Erik Naggum

Animal, People, Together

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That's why the smartest companies use Common Lisp, but lie about it so all their competitors think Lisp is slow and C++ is fast.

Erik Naggum

Lying, Thinking, Use

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The Web provided me with a much needed realization that information cannot be fully separated from its presentation, and showed me something I knew without verbalizing explicitly, that the presentation form we choose communicates real information.

Erik Naggum

Real, Information, Communicate

"S-exp vs XML, HTML, LaTeX (was: Why lisp is growing)". Usenet article, groups.google.com. December 28, 2012.

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Unfortunately, nigh the whole world is now duped into thinking that silly fill-in forms on web pages is the way to do user interfaces.

Erik Naggum

Silly, Thinking, World

"Pause for keystroke". groups.google.com. OCtober 6, 2001.

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Life is too long to know C++ well.

Erik Naggum

Long, Life Is, Wells

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Gotos aren't damnable to begin with. If you aren't smart enough to distinguish what's bad about some gotos from all gotos, goto hell.

Erik Naggum

Smart, Hell, Enough

"Re: destroying CLOS objects". Usenet article, groups.google.com. October 14, 2000.

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Optimization is generally detrimental to future success, but it is the only way to accomplish present success in competition with others who are equally interested in short-term results.

Erik Naggum

Competition, Way, Results

"O'reilly subjugated to the Lisp juggenaut". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. January 18, 2004.

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Would you buy a book proudly stating on the cover that its reader is a dummy? Or would you think "of course it's ironic"?

Erik Naggum

Book, Thinking, Ironic

Read the fine manual, please (Usenet article), groups.google.com. November 14, 1997.

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I guess there are some things that are so gross you just have to forget, or it'll destroy something within you. Perl is the first such thing I have known.

Erik Naggum

Firsts, Forget, Gross

Re: can lisp do what perl does easily?(Usenet article), groups.google.com. March 28, 2000.

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Part of any serious QA is removing Perl code the same way you go over a dilapidated building you inherit to remove chewing gum and duct tape and fix whatever was kept together for real.

Erik Naggum

Real, Together, Tape

Re: can lisp do what perl does easily? (Usenet article), groups.google.com. March 23, 2000.

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Life is hard, and then you die.

Erik Naggum

Life Is Hard, Life Is, Dies

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I may be biased, but I tend to find a much lower tendency among female programmers to be dishonest about their skills, and thus do not say they know C++ when they are smart enough to realize that that would be a lie for all but perhaps 5 people on this planet.

Erik Naggum

Smart, Lying, Skills

Re: In praise of Java (Usenet article), groups.google.com. December 1, 2001.

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Well, take it from an old hand: the only reason it would be easier to program in C is that you can't easily express complex problems in C, so you don't.

Erik Naggum

Hands, Would Be, Problem

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C is not clean – the language has many gotchas and traps, and although its semantics are simple in some sense, it is not any cleaner than the assembly-language design it is based on.

Erik Naggum

Simple, Design, Language

Re: teaching and learning with LISP/Scheme (Usenet article), groups.google.com. June 20, 2000.

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I have long since given up dealing with people who hold idiotic opinions as if they had arrived at them through thinking about them.

Erik Naggum

Thinking, Long, People

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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I regret that this isn't fatal.

Erik Naggum

Regret, Littles, Dangerous

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Ignoring for a moment the power of the American Medical Association, we still wouldn't see a huge amount of books on neurosurgery for dummies in 21 days or whatever. It's just plain inappropriate, and it's intentionally out of people's reach.

Erik Naggum

Book, People, Association

"Is LISP dying?". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. July 15, 1999.

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Historically, labor unions arose when people had gotten a taste of a different lifestyle and were willing to pay a lot more for their basic livelihood and had gotten into a fix they couldn't get out of - because they had accepted the unacceptable to begin with. Accepting something you have to form a labor union to fight after the fact only tells me that people were acting against their own best (or even good) interests for a long time. I don't see any rational, coherent explanation for this sort of behavior in humans, but it's all over the place.

Erik Naggum

Fighting, Long, People

"Source access vs dynamism". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. August 28, 1999.

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If car manufacturers made cars according to spec the same way software vendors make software according to spec, all five wheels would be of widely differing sizes, it would take one person to steer and another to work the pedals and yet another to operate the user-friendly menu-driven dashboard, and if it would not drive straight ahead without a lot of effort, civil engineers would respond by building spiraling roads around each city.

Erik Naggum

Cities, Car, Effort

"What obstacles do Common Lisp programmers face?". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. January 12, 2002.

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Erik Naggum

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Born: June 13, 1965
Died: June 17, 2009
Occupation: Computer programmer
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