“ The other reason programmers are fussy, I think, is that evil begets stupidity. An organization that wins by exercising power starts to lose the ability to win by doing better work. And it’s not fun for a smart person to work in a place where the best ideas aren’t the ones that win.
Web Quotes
Smart quotes from across the www
November 21, 2009
November 3, 2009
“ …programming languages should have a “low floor” (easy to get started) and a “high ceiling” (opportunities to create increasingly complex projects over time). In addition, languages need “wide walls” (supporting many different types of projects so people with many different interests and learning styles can all become engaged)
October 29, 2009
“ Academy Award-winning director (The Incredibles and Ratatouille) talks about the importance, in his work, of pushing teams beyond their comfort zones, encouraging dissent, and building morale. He also explained the value of “black sheep”—restless contributors with unconventional ideas.
October 20, 2009
“ Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on. Paying attention to what is going on in the world. Seeing patterns. Seeing things as they are rather than how you want them to be. Being able to read what people want. Putting yourself in the right place where information is flowing freely and interesting new juxtapositions can be seen
“ Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.
October 11, 2009
“ Programming is an exercise in overcoming how wrong you’ve been in the past. At first you’ll overcome the syntax errors, then you’ll overcome the structural errors, and then you’ll come to align your code with the standards of a greater community and you’ll feel safe and like you’ve made it. You haven’t – you’re still wrong because you’re always wrong. You are playing a game you cannot win. And let’s face it – if it was a game you could win you’d not be playing at all.
October 7, 2009
“ For far too long, techies have been obsessed with the workings of what they do rather than the results of those workings. With only a statistically insignificant number of exceptions, most people using an iPhone would not know Objective-C if it smacked them in the face with a sackload of gold-plated unicorn shit. More than that: they simply don’t care. Not because they’re careless, but because it is genuinely irrelevant to their lives
September 21, 2009
“ Most companies have it all wrong. They don’t have to motivate their employees. They have to stop demotivating them. The great majority of employees are quite enthusiastic when they start a new job. But in about 85 percent of companies, our research finds, employees’ morale sharply declines after their first six months—and continues to deteriorate for years afterward.
September 3, 2009
“ Visual appeal and back-end performance obviously play a big role in website visitors’ experiences, but it’s not the same as UX: good UX is a good functional experience.
August 5, 2009
“ The real company values, as opposed to the nice-sounding values, are shown by who gets rewarded, promoted, or let go
