Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.

We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.

When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.

Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.

Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.

Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.