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Any tool should be useful in the expected way, but a truly great tool lends itself to uses you never expected.

Eric S. Raymond

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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
Useful
Expected
Tools
Truly
Use
Lends
Great
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Tool

More quotes by Eric S. Raymond

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Of course, C proved indispensible to the developers of all its alternatives. Dig down through enough implementation layers under any of the other languages surveyed here and you will find a core implemented in pure, portable C
Eric S. Raymond
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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.
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Grovelling is not a substitute for doing your homework.
Eric S. Raymond
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If you treat your beta-testers as if they're your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource.
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In the U.S., blacks are 12% of the population but commit 50% of violent crimes can anyone honestly think this is unconnected to the fact that they average 15 points of IQ lower than the general population? That stupid people are more violent is a fact independent of skin color.
Eric S. Raymond
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Equally, the Internet interprets attempts at proprietary control as threats and mobilizes to defeat them.
Eric S. Raymond
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Software is largely a service industry operating under the persistent but unfounded delusion that it is a manufacturing industry
Eric S. Raymond
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And for any agents or proxy of the regime interested in asking me questions face to face, I've got some bullets slathered in pork fat to make you feel extra special welcome.
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Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.
Eric S. Raymond
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If you have the right attitude, interesting problems will find you.
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Ugly programs are like ugly suspension bridges: they're much more liable to collapse than pretty ones, because the way humans (especially engineer-humans) perceive beauty is intimately related to our ability to process and understand complexity. A language that makes it hard to write elegant code makes it hard to write good code.
Eric S. Raymond
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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
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The easiest programs to use are those which demand the least new learning from the user
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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
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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
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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
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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.
Eric S. Raymond
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Thompson and Ritchie were among the first to realize that hardware and compiler technology had become good enough that an entire operating system could be written in C, and by 1978 the whole environment had been successfully ported to several machines of different types.
Eric S. Raymond
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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
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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.
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