Provided the development coordinator has a communications medium at least as good as the Internet and knows how to lead without coercion, many heads are inevitably better than one.

The only way to write complex software that won't fall on its face is to hold its global complexity down - to build it out of simple pieces connected by well-defined interfaces, so that most problems are local and you can have some hope of fixing or optimizing a part without breaking the whole

Equally, the Internet interprets attempts at proprietary control as threats and mobilizes to defeat them.

Microsoft is not the problem. Microsoft is the symptom.

If you treat your beta-testers as if they're your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource.

Being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker anymore than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer.

Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot.