There’s a zen concept of a finger pointing at the moon. If I show you this [points at the moon], I’m not trying to show you the finger, I’m trying to show you the moon, but the moon is really far, so all I’ve got is the finger.

Skepticism is ok.

What I worry about is when you go from being in the default mode of being curious about new things, to the default mode of being suspicious about new things.

A tractor, a go-kart, and a Ferrari all perform about the same if you’re only traveling 1 inch.

Weeks of undirected work can save you hours of planning.

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.

There are two ways of constructing a design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.

Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.

Being abstract is something profoundly different from being vague… The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.

A most important, but also most elusive, aspect of any tool is its influence on the habits of those who train themselves in its use.

Saying “I want to possibly, maybe, one day support infinity” is a bad choice for most businesses.