The Very Big Stupid is a thing which breeds by eating The Future. Have you seen it? It sometimes disguises itself as a good-looking quarterly bottom line, derived by closing the R&D department.
There's a saying in the software design industry: "Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two."
The general problem with ambitious systems is complexity. [...] it is important to emphasize the value of simplicity and elegance, for complexity has a way of compounding difficulties.
Systems programmers are the high priests of a low cult.
It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter.
Crappy old OSes have value in the basically negative sense that changing to new ones makes us wish we'd never been born.
...wisdom is in large part the knowledge of how to avoid doing dumb things, and thus grows globally as a function of the published inventory of stupid mistakes.
Anyone could learn Lisp in one day, except that if they already knew Fortran, it would take three days.
The problem with using C++ ... is that there's already a strong tendency in the language to require you to know everything before you can do anything.
Java development without a little heresy would be a dull place, and a dangerous one.
Find the simplest model that is not a lie is the key to better software design.
The Internet is a powerful example of free speech and the free market in action; it is curious that the Net has alarmed the lawmakers of a nation founded on those principles.
I have found that meditation has helped me with my academic career and has given me insights into musical composition and software design.
I no longer teach meditation, only software design.
If you like your remote messaging fat, dumb, and interoperable, you could also look into the SOAP libraries distributed with Ruby.
...it is simplicity that is difficult to make.
Human beings either function as individuals or as members of a pack. There's a switch inside us, deep in our spirit, that you can turn one way or the other. It's almost always the case that our worst behaviour comes out when we're switched to the mob setting. The problem with a lot of software designs is that they switch us to that setting.
A charlatan makes obscure what is clear; a thinker makes clear what is obscure.
As for a picture, if it isn't worth a thousand words, the hell with it.
Luck is the residue of design.
A simple [writing] style is the result of very hard work.
Design and programming are human activities; forget that and all is lost.
... with proper design, the features come cheaply. This approach is arduous, but continues to succeed.
The future belongs to neither the conduit or content players, but those who control the filtering, searching and sense-making tools we will rely on to navigate through the expanses of cyberspace.
If you want a language that tries to lock up all the sharp objects and fire-making implements, use Pascal or Ada: the Nerf languages, harmless fun for children of all ages, and they won't mar the furniture.
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