Eric S. Raymond Quotes

The effective exploitation of his powers of abstraction must be regarded as one of the most vital activities of a competent programmer.

Even if you're going into a field that has nothing to do with computer science, just having that way of analytical thinking and being able to process information and break it down is important no matter what you're doing. Having that knowledge of code is something that you can apply to your daily life.

It takes ten thousand hours to truly master anything. Time spent leads to experience; experience leads to proficiency; and the more proficient you are the more valuable you'll be.

A great lathe operator commands several times the wage of an average lathe operator, but a great writer of software code is worth 10,000 times the price of an average software writer.

Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer, because it teaches you how to think.

Owning a computer without programming is like having a kitchen and using only the microwave oven

True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes.

The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.

With 'Scratch,' we want to let kids to be the creators. We want them to create interesting, dynamic things on the computer.

A good engineering interview will include some set of difficult problems to solve. It might even require that the candidate write a short program. In addition, it will test the candidate's knowledge of the tools she uses in great depth.

Experience helps you do better in your work.

Singing and composing come naturally to me, but acting does not. I have worked at it and attended several workshops to learn the craft.

The heart of the matter is that everybody starts video games as a beginner. Then, after going through a lot of experiences and becoming more and more fond of video games, they become the experts.

In my view, the fact that computers caught up to humans and completely dominate humans in chess and some other domains already, that says there's evidence that, yes, in principle, they can be better programmers than humans.

Women are both talented and innovative thinkers and tend to use computer science as a tool to solve larger problems.

To master a new technology, you have to play with it.

We're learning the business, meeting people we need to know, getting knowledgeable about our craft.

I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic.

The time that leads to mastery is dependent on the intensity of our focus.

The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert - in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again…no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

Building Oracle is like doing math puzzles as a kid.

The computers are not replacing mathematicians; they are breeding them.

Anything we need to know, we can learn it from a book. Reading, careful study, a little practice, and we’re throwing knives expertly, overhauling engines, speaking Esperanto like natives.

To become really good at anything, you have to practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until the technique becomes intuitive.

I've known people who have not mastered their tools who are good programmers, but not a tool master who remained a mediocre programmer.