Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer. 

~ Dijkstra

Bible salesman

"I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don't become missionaries. Don't feel as if you're Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don't feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What's in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.''

-- Alan J. Perlis

Blame

Leaders accept blame

-- @johnprg

Looking for a map

If you're looking for 'how', if you're looking for a map, for a way to industrialize the new era, you've totally missed the point and you will end up disappointed. The nature of the last era was that repetition and management of results increased profits. The nature of this one is the opposite: if someone can tell you precisely what to do, it's too late. Art and novelty and innovation cannot be reliably and successfully industrialized.

-- Seth Godin @ Linchpin (best book ever)

Sucesso na carreira

[...] então "estou fazendo alguma coisa que me motiva a levantar da cama todo dia pra fazer" ou "estou fazendo alguma coisa que todo dia eu não quero sair da cama pra fazer" define sucesso ou insucesso na carreira.

- Sob essa óptica, você é bem sucedido?

Eu nem durmo.

-- Fábio Akita, Grok Podcast n° 26

Time for a workflow audit

Go find a geek. Someone who understands gmail, Outlook, Excel and other basic tools.

Pay her to sit next to you for an hour and watch you work.

Then say, "tell me five ways I can save an hour a day."

Whatever you need to pay for this service, it will pay for itself in a week.

-- Seth Godin @ goo.gl/xHQHz

The Curse of the Silicon Valley

[...] the Curse of the Silicon Valley is that great engineers are often promoted to leadership for their hard work. While many succeed in this role, an equal part fails because the skills required to lead are vastly different than the ones required to be an engineer. The Curse is that we’re often placing our most valuable engineers in a role where they’re predisposed to fail.

[...] there’s a large population of immensely talented engineers that should not be leaders. There is no amount of training that would make up for the talent we’d extinguish by teaching them how to write annual reviews.

-- rands @ goo.gl/YYFCs

People change slower than they think.

-- Rands in Response twitter.com/rands

Details

To understand why details matter, you first need to notice them.

-- Rands in Response twitter.com/rands

Skilled people & doomed companies

It’s a fact that a lot of skilled people are working at doomed companies, and that’s bad, because the most precious resource (in business) is the time, energy, talent, and creativity of these people.

-- Eric Reis @ http://goo.gl/F9QsU

Great Habits

“I’m not a great programmer; I’m just a good programmer with great habits.”

-- Kent Beck