A tail call allows a function to return the result of another function
without leaving an entry on the stack. Tail recursion is a specific case
of tail calling.
-- ASPN : Python Cookbook : Explicit Tail Call
Lisp has jokingly been called "the most intelligent way to misuse a
computer". I think that description is a great compliment because it
transmits the full flavor of liberation: it has assisted a number of our
most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts.
-- Edsger Dijkstra, CACM, 15:10
A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longuer anything to add, but when there is no longuer anything to take
away.
-- Antoine de St Exupery.
La tactique, c'est ce que vous faites quand il y a quelque chose à
faire; la stratégie, c'est ce que vous faites quand il n'y a rien à
faire.
-- Xavier Tartacover
Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex, intelligent
behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple, stupid
behavior.
-- Dee Hock, Birth of the Chaordic Age
It's no trick for talented people to be interesting, but it's a gift to
be interested. We want an organization filled with interested people.
-- Randy S. Nelson (dean of Pixar University)
I feel it is everybodies obligation to reach for the best in themselves
and use that for the interest of mankind.
-- Corneluis (comment on 'Are you going to change the world? (Really?)')
Functional programming is to algorithms as the ubiquitous little black
dress is to women's fashion.
-- Mark Tarver (of "The bipolar Lisp programmer" fame)
Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last
recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control
outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will
always have the last word.
-- Nassim Taleb
The best programmers are not marginally better than merely good ones.
They are an order-of-magnitude better, measured by whatever standard:
conceptual creativity, speed, ingenuity of design, or problem-solving
ability.
-- Randall E. Stross
That is the inevitable human response. We’re reluctant to believe that
great discoveries are in the air. We want to believe that great
discoveries are in our heads—and to each party in the multiple the
presence of the other party is invariably cause for suspicion.
-- Malcolm Gladwell, Who says big ideas are rare?
Let me try to get this straight: Lisp is a language for describing
algorithms. This was JohnMcCarthy's original purpose, anyway: to build
something more convenient than a Turing machine. Lisp is not about file,
socket or GUI programming - Lisp is about expressive power. (For
example, you can design multiple object systems for Lisp, in Lisp. Or
implement the now-fashionable AOP. Or do arbitrary transformations on
parsed source code.) If you don't value expressive power, Lisp ain't for
you. I, personally, would prefer Lisp to not become mainstream: this
would necessarily involve a dumbing down.
-- VladimirSlepnev
We now come to the decisive step of mathematical abstraction: we forget
about what the symbols stand for. ...[The mathematician] need not be
idle; there are many operations which he may carry out with these
symbols, without ever having to look at the things they stand for.
-- Hermann Weyl, The Mathematical Way of Thinking
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people
always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can
become great.
-- Mark Twain
It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible
to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with
such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years.
-- John Von Neumann, circa 1949
Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to
predict the future is to invent it.
-- Alan Kay
Be the change you want to see in the world.
-- Mahatma Gandhi
The best way to learn to live with our limitations is to know them.
--E. W. Dijkstra, The humble programmer
Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected
without, I thought, proper consideration.
-- Stan Kelly-Bootle
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.
-- Cited by Randy Pausch
A tail call allows a function to return the result of another function
without leaving an entry on the stack. Tail recursion is a specific case
of tail calling.
-- ASPN : Python Cookbook : Explicit Tail Call
Do not accept anything because it comes from the mouth of a respected person.
-- Buddha
C and Lisp stand at opposite ends of the spectrum; they're each great at
what the other one sucks at.
-- Steve Yegge, Tour de Babel.
Lisp has jokingly been called "the most intelligent way to misuse a
computer". I think that description is a great compliment because it
transmits the full flavor of liberation: it has assisted a number of our
most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts.
-- Edsger Dijkstra, CACM, 15:10
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.
-- Cicero
A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longuer anything to add, but when there is no longuer anything to take
away.
-- Antoine de St Exupery.
La tactique, c'est ce que vous faites quand il y a quelque chose à
faire; la stratégie, c'est ce que vous faites quand il n'y a rien à
faire.
-- Xavier Tartacover
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
-- Mark Twain
Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex, intelligent
behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple, stupid
behavior.
-- Dee Hock, Birth of the Chaordic Age
Everybody makes their own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it ain't
fun -- it's entertainment.
-- David Mamet (as relayed by Joss Whedon)
Give up control. You never really had it anyway.
-- How to fail: 25 secrets learned through failure
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in
God.
-- Alan J. Perlis (Epigrams in programming)
It's no trick for talented people to be interesting, but it's a gift to
be interested. We want an organization filled with interested people.
-- Randy S. Nelson (dean of Pixar University)
Remember that you are humans in the first place and only after that
programmers.
-- Alexandru Vancea
Give up control. You never really had it anyway.
-- How to fail: 25 secrets learned through failure
I feel it is everybodies obligation to reach for the best in themselves
and use that for the interest of mankind.
-- Corneluis (comment on 'Are you going to change the world? (Really?)')
Ce n’est que par les beaux sentiments qu’on parvient à la fortune !
-- Charles Baudelaire, Conseils aux jeunes littérateurs.
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are always cocksure and
the intelligent are always filled with doubt.
-- Bertrand Russell
A witty saying proves nothing
-- Voltaire
Work as intensely as you play and play as intensely as you work.
-- Eric S. Raymond, How To Be A Hacker
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.
-- Cicero
Functional programming is to algorithms as the ubiquitous little black
dress is to women's fashion.
-- Mark Tarver (of "The bipolar Lisp programmer" fame)
Saying that Java is nice because it works on all OSes is like saying
that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
-- Alanna
Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which
matter least.
-- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832)
Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last
recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control
outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will
always have the last word.
-- Nassim Taleb
Only make new mistakes.
-- Phil Dourado
The best programmers are not marginally better than merely good ones.
They are an order-of-magnitude better, measured by whatever standard:
conceptual creativity, speed, ingenuity of design, or problem-solving
ability.
-- Randall E. Stross
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from
religious conviction.
-- Blaise Pascal (attributed)
Photography is painting with light.
-- Eric Hamilton
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is
not worth knowing.
-- Alan Perlis
That is the inevitable human response. We’re reluctant to believe that
great discoveries are in the air. We want to believe that great
discoveries are in our heads—and to each party in the multiple the
presence of the other party is invariably cause for suspicion.
-- Malcolm Gladwell, Who says big ideas are rare?
Remember that you are humans in the first place and only after that
programmers.
-- Alexandru Vancea
No art, however minor, demands less than total dedication if you want to
excel in it.
-- Alberti
Give up control. You never really had it anyway.
-- How to fail: 25 secrets learned through failure
Let me try to get this straight: Lisp is a language for describing
algorithms. This was JohnMcCarthy's original purpose, anyway: to build
something more convenient than a Turing machine. Lisp is not about file,
socket or GUI programming - Lisp is about expressive power. (For
example, you can design multiple object systems for Lisp, in Lisp. Or
implement the now-fashionable AOP. Or do arbitrary transformations on
parsed source code.) If you don't value expressive power, Lisp ain't for
you. I, personally, would prefer Lisp to not become mainstream: this
would necessarily involve a dumbing down.
-- VladimirSlepnev
Lisp programmers know the value of everything but the cost of nothing.
-- Alan J. Perlis
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in
God.
-- Alan J. Perlis (Epigrams in programming)
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different results.
-- Benjamin Franklin
You can have premature generalization as well as premature optimization.
-- Bjarne Stroustrup
Premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it)
in programming.
-- Donald Knuth
We now come to the decisive step of mathematical abstraction: we forget
about what the symbols stand for. ...[The mathematician] need not be
idle; there are many operations which he may carry out with these
symbols, without ever having to look at the things they stand for.
-- Hermann Weyl, The Mathematical Way of Thinking
If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be
the process of putting them in.
-- Edsger W. Dijkstra
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people
always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can
become great.
-- Mark Twain
Rules of Optimization:
Rule 1: Don’t do it.
Rule 2 (for experts only): Don’t do it yet.
-- M.A. Jackson
If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be
the process of putting them in.
-- Edsger W. Dijkstra
It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible
to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with
such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years.
-- John Von Neumann, circa 1949
It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.
-- Rear Admiral Dr. Grace Hopper