My impression was and is that many programming languages and tools represent solutions looking for problems, and I was determined that my work should not fall into that category. Thus, I follow the literature on programming languages and the debates about programming languages primarily looking for ideas for solutions to problems my colleagues and I have encountered in real applications. Other programming languages constitute a mountain of ideas and inspiration-but it has to be mined carefully to avoid featurism and inconsistencies.

I like doing research that has an impact. If I went to a company to make what they call 'real money,' I'd be just trying to make a system work as fast as possible to meet the product and serice deadlines.

People who passionately want to believe that the world is basically simple react to this with a fury that goes beyond what I consider appropriate for discussing a programming language.

After all, C++ isn't a perfect match for Java's design aims either.

However, when Java is promoted as the sole programming language, its flaws and limitations become serious.

The first law of computer science: Every problem is solved by yet another indirection.

An organisation that treats its programmers as morons will soon have programmers that are willing and able to act like morons only.