Quote

Prototype, then polish. Get it working before you optimize it

Eric S. Raymond

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Eric S. Raymond
Age: 66
Born: 1957
Born: December 4
Computer Scientist
Engineer
Journalist
Lawyer
Programmer
Software Developer
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
Eric Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond
ESR
Working
Optimize
Prototype
Polish

More quotes by Eric S. Raymond

Image
Lisp was far more powerful and flexible than any other language of its day in fact, it is still a better design than most languages of today, twenty-five years later. Lisp freed ITS's hackers to think in unusual and creative ways. It was a major factor in their successes, and remains one of hackerdom's favorite languages.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
The Wesnoth devs are good but not exceptionally so, and we're weighed down by a crappy implementation language (C++). Nevertheless our productivity, in terms of goals achieved per hour of work, is quite high.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
Any tool should be useful in the expected way, but a truly great tool lends itself to uses you never expected.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
If you treat your beta-testers as if they're your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
Treating your users as co-developers is your least-hassle route to rapid code improvement and effective debugging.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
A security system is only as secure as its secret. Beware of pseudo-secrets.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow (e.g., given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone).
Eric S. Raymond
Image
Often, the most striking and innovative solutions come from realizing that your concept of the problem was wrong.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
You cannot motivate the best people with money. Money is just a way to keep score. The best people in any field are motivated by passion.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
Every good work of software starts by scratching a developers personal itch.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
For the first time, individual hackers could afford to have home machines comparable in power and storage capacity to the minicomputers of ten years earlier - Unix engines capable of supporting a full development environment and talking to the Internet.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
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.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
Linux evolved in a completely different way. From nearly the beginning, it was rather casually hacked on by huge numbers of volunteers coordinating only through the Internet.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
Being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker anymore than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
Today I am one of the senior technical cadre that makes the Internet work, and a core Linux and open-source developer.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
Software is largely a service industry operating under the persistent but unfounded delusion that it is a manufacturing industry
Eric S. Raymond
Image
It is widely grokked that cats have the hacker nature
Eric S. Raymond
Image
The next best thing to having good ideas is recognizing good ideas from your users. Sometimes the latter is better.
Eric S. Raymond
Image
Berkeley hackers liked to see themselves as rebels against soulless corporate empires.
Eric S. Raymond