[Boxed] Multiple bouncing balls in a box are a metaphor for community. Notice how the escaping balls explode. This is what happens to people who move from Perl to Ruby.

Younger hackers are hard to classify. They're probably just as diverse as the old hackers are. We're all over the map.

At many levels, Perl is a 'diagonal' language.

Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.

For me, writing is a love-hate relationship.

Portability should be the default.

I think software patents are a bad idea. Many patents are given for trivial inventions.

Symmetry is overrated. Overrated is symmetry.

The Harvard Law states: Under controlled conditions of light, temperature, humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Over the long term, symbiosis is more useful than parasitism. More fun, too. Ask any mitochondria.

Hubris itself will not let you be an artist.

To say, ‘he lacks understanding’, about someone is an open kashay (inner weakness of anger-pride-deceit-greed).

Facts do not become historical evidence until someone thinks up something for them to prove or disprove.

I got a text from my husband. “Manal, you are divorced, ” it read. “Your papers are in the court of Khobar.” I was divorced in my absence, just as I had been married.

It is your life, enthusiastically accept the challenge.

Love is Lots Of Valuable Energy.

I don't care what anyone does, as long as they go through the copyright office.

So how as a nation can we sit around and eat Mexican food, and drink beer and make friends? That's the question. If we can do that on a broader scale, I think we'll come out of it all right.

Programming is all about numbers.

We are like snails, each stuck to his own leaf.

Saying that all documentaries are the same is like saying all foreign films are the same.