Testing Shows The Presence, Not The Absence

It Used To Be The Program's Purpose To Instruct Our Computers; It Became The Computer's Purpose To Execute Our Programs.

Lisp Has Jokingly Been Described As "the Most Intelligent Way To Misuse A Computer." I Think That Description Is A Great Compliment Because It Transmits The Full Flavour Of Liberation: It Has Assisted A Number Of Our Most Gifted Fellow Humans In Thinking Previously Impossible Thoughts.

...simplifications Have Had A Much Greater Long-range Scientific Impact Than Individual Feats Of Ingenuity. The Opportunity For Simplification Is Very Encouraging, Because In All Examples That Come To Mind The Simple And Elegant Systems Tend To Be Easier And Faster To Design And Get Right, More Efficient In Execution, And Much More Reliable Than The More Contrived Contraptions That Have To Be Debugged Into Some Degree Of Acceptability....simplicity And Elegance Are Unpopular Because They Require Hard Work And Discipline To Achieve And Education To Be Appreciated.

I Mean, If 10 Years From Now, When You Are Doing Something Quick And Dirty, You Suddenly Visualize That I Am Looking Over Your Shoulders And Say To Yourself "dijkstra Would Not Have Liked This," Well, That Would Be Enough Immortality For Me.

Aim For Brevity While Avoiding Jargon.