Quote

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

Erik Naggum

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Erik Naggum
Age: 44 †
Born: 1965
Born: June 13
Died: 2009
Died: June 17
Computer Programmer
It Consultant
Programmer
Actually
Abstraction
Mess
Provide
Admire
Horrible
Called
Unix
Successful
Perl
Ability
Collectively

More quotes by Erik Naggum

Image
The Web provided me with a much needed realization that information cannot be fully separated from its presentation, and showed me something I knew without verbalizing explicitly, that the presentation form we choose communicates real information.
Erik Naggum
Image
Some people are little more than herd animals, flocking together whenever the world becomes uncomfortable … I am not one of those people. If I had a motto, it would probably be Herd thither, me hither.
Erik Naggum
Image
Have you considered the option of getting the joke? If not, try it now and redeem your soul.
Erik Naggum
Image
Contrary to the foolish notion that syntax is immaterial, people optimize the way they express themselves, and so express themselves differently with different syntaxes.
Erik Naggum
Image
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.
Erik Naggum
Image
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.
Erik Naggum
Image
Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question. NO is the answer.
Erik Naggum
Image
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.
Erik Naggum
Image
The fundamental deficiency in HTML is that it reduces hypertext and the intertwinedness of human communication to a question of how it is rendered and what happens when you click on it. ... HTML is to the browser what PostScript is to the laser printer.
Erik Naggum
Image
The aspects you are willing to ignore are more important than the aspects you are willing to accept.
Erik Naggum
Image
I'm bothered by the fact that stupid people don't spontaneously combust, which they should.
Erik Naggum
Image
C being what it is lacks support for multiple return values, so the notion that it is meaningful to pass pointers to memory objects into which any random function may write random values without having a clue where they point, has not been debunked as the sheer idiocy it really is.
Erik Naggum
Image
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.
Erik Naggum
Image
I have a cat, so I know that when she digs her very sharp claws into my chest or stomach it's really a sign of affection, but I don't see any reason for programming languages to show affection with pain.
Erik Naggum
Image
Just getting something to work usually means writing reams of code fast, like a Stephen King novel, but making it maintainable and high-quality code that really expresses the ideas well, is like writing poetry. Art is taking away.
Erik Naggum
Image
If you want to know why Lisp doesn't win around you, find a mirror.
Erik Naggum
Image
Ignoring for a moment the power of the American Medical Association, we still wouldn't see a huge amount of books on neurosurgery for dummies in 21 days or whatever. It's just plain inappropriate, and it's intentionally out of people's reach.
Erik Naggum
Image
Once we were Programmers. Maybe our last best hope is a movie.
Erik Naggum
Image
I have long since given up dealing with people who hold idiotic opinions as if they had arrived at them through thinking about them.
Erik Naggum
Image
Enlightenment is probably antithetical to impatience.
Erik Naggum