Product philosophies people like.

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Over the years, I've come increasingly to the opinion that the product philosophy that I respect most and want my own work to follow is Larry Wall's statement of intent for Perl - "Make the easy things easy, and the hard things possible."

Any maxims that others are particularly fond of?

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2000

Answers

How about "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read."

Or

"They say that gays are ruining the fabric of society. I say, what do straights know about fabric?"

-- Anonymous, November 25, 2000


I've always liked the BSD license philosophy, which can be paraphrased as "Microsoft is copyright, Linux is copyleft, we're copy center."

Take a moment, and you'll see what they mean.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2000


Hows: 'Well it works fine in practice, but does it work in theory?'

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

I always liked 'time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana'...of course that is a Doctor Who reference, not really a work- related maxim

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

Sounds like you need some Marxist indoctrination: "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana" is a quote from Groucho, as is, apparently, the "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read" line that Joel quotes above.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000


"If you are angry with someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes... then you'll be a mile away from them, and you'll have their shoes."

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2000

"In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is."

-- Anonymous, January 15, 2001

"Anything that works in theory but not in practice is simply an outcry for a better theory."

-- Anonymous, February 01, 2001

The more exotic the Project name the more ordinary the Product S.P.L.

-- Anonymous, March 12, 2001

It's simple to make something hard and hard to make something simple.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001


Inside every large program, there’s a small program struggling to get out. This is a paraphrase of a quote by Wirth, or Horvath, if I recall correctly.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2001

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