Erik Naggum Quotes

It's not that Perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language rewards idiotic behavior in a way that no other language or tool has ever done.

Norway did not even have a revolution at the time the rest of Europe was busy figuring out human rights and stuff, because we were busy fighting over how to spell it.

We have no mom-and-pop oil rigs in Norway.

Part of any serious QA is removing Perl code the same way you go over a dilapidated building you inherit to remove chewing gum and duct tape and fix whatever was kept together for real.

it's just that in C++ and the like, you don't trust anybody, and in CLOS you basically trust everybody. The practical result is that thieves and bums use C++ and nice people use CLOS.

Unformed people delight in the gaudy and in novelty. Cooked people delight in the ordinary.

Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question. NO is the answer.

Well, take it from an old hand: the only reason it would be easier to program in C is that you can't easily express complex problems in C, so you don't.

Life is hard, and then you die.

I guess there are some things that are so gross you just have to forget, or it'll destroy something within you. Perl is the first such thing I have known.

That's why the smartest companies use Common Lisp, but lie about it so all their competitors think Lisp is slow and C++ is fast.

Optimization is generally detrimental to future success, but it is the only way to accomplish present success in competition with others who are equally interested in short-term results.

Suppose we blasted all politicians into space. Would the SETI project find even one of them?

Let's just hope that all the world is run by Bill Gates before the Perl hackers can destroy it.

The very word "exist" derives from "to step forth, to stand out".

Unfortunately, nigh the whole world is now duped into thinking that silly fill-in forms on web pages is the way to do user interfaces.

If you want to know why Lisp doesn't win around you, find a mirror.

Sufficiently advanced political correctness is indistinguishable from sarcasm.

Like many older fans of Free Software and Open Source, I have discovered that it is really only free in the sense that the time you spend on it is worthless.

Languages shape the way we think, or don't.

The purpose of human existence is to learn and to understand as much as we can of what came before us, so we can further the sum total of human knowledge in our life.

If Perl is the solution, you're solving the wrong problem.

The ultimate laziness is not using Perl. That saves you so much work you wouldn't believe it if you had never tried it.

A word says more than a thousand images. Exercises for the visually inclined: illustrate "appreciation", "humor", "software", "education", "inalienable rights", "elegance", "fact".

'Code sharing' is an economic surplus phenomenon. It works only when none of the people involved in it are in any form of need.

I'm bothered by the fact that stupid people don't spontaneously combust, which they should.

XML is a giant step in no direction at all.

Enlightenment is probably antithetical to impatience.

Have you considered the option of getting the joke? If not, try it now and redeem your soul.

The aspects you are willing to ignore are more important than the aspects you are willing to accept.

Gotos aren't damnable to begin with. If you aren't smart enough to distinguish what's bad about some gotos from all gotos, goto hell.

Life is too long to know C++ well.

Would you buy a book proudly stating on the cover that its reader is a dummy? Or would you think "of course it's ironic"?

C is not clean – the language has many gotchas and traps, and although its semantics are simple in some sense, it is not any cleaner than the assembly-language design it is based on.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I regret that this isn't fatal.

I have long since given up dealing with people who hold idiotic opinions as if they had arrived at them through thinking about them.

Constructing a social system that tends to those who agree with it is a piece of cake compared to constructing one that makes those who disagree with it want to obey its principles.

Contrary to the foolish notion that syntax is immaterial, people optimize the way they express themselves, and so express themselves differently with different syntaxes.

What I actually admire in Perl is its ability to provide a very successful abstraction of the horrible mess that is collectively called Unix.

In C++, reinvention is its own reward.

Once we were Programmers. Maybe our last best hope is a movie.

Those who write software only for pay should go hurt some other field.

The currency in the developer community is enthusiasm.

A system needs to be alive and workable even when other people than the first enthusiasts start using it. Reinvention and revolution are enthusiast stuff. Invention and evolution are engineering.

Structure is nothing if it is all you got. Skeletons spook people if they try to walk around on their own. I really wonder why XML does not.

Counting lines is probably a good idea if you want to print it out and are short on paper, but I fail to see the purpose otherwise.

The only important property of evils of the past is that they not be repeated in the future, in any way, shape, or form.

C++ is a language strongly optimized for liars and people who go by guesswork and ignorance.