Eric S. Raymond
Eric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond, often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, author of the widely cited 1997 essay and 1999 book The Cathedral and the Bazaar and other works, and open-source software advocate. He wrote a guidebook for the Roguelike game NetHack. In the 1990s, he edited and updated the Jargon File, currently in print as the The New Hacker's Dictionary...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth4 December 1957
CountryUnited States of America
senior today linux
Today I am one of the senior technical cadre that makes the Internet work, and a core Linux and open-source developer.
use demand program
The easiest programs to use are those which demand the least new learning from the user
polish prototype
Prototype, then polish. Get it working before you optimize it
home talking years
For the first time, individual hackers could afford to have home machines comparable in power and storage capacity to the minicomputers of ten years earlier - Unix engines capable of supporting a full development environment and talking to the Internet.
simple brain looks
A software system is transparent when you can look at it and immediately see what is going on. It is simple when what is going on is uncomplicated enough for a human brain to reason about all the potential cases without strain
writing bridges simplicity
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.
fun mad people
We hackers are a playful bunch; we'll hack anything, including language, if it looks like fun (thus our tropism for puns). Deep down, we like confusing people who are stuffier and less mentally agile than we are, especially when they're bosses. There's a little bit of the mad scientist in all hackers, ready to discombobulate the world and flip authority the finger - especially if we can do it with snazzy special effects.
use way tools
Any tool should be useful in the expected way, but a truly great tool lends itself to uses you never expected.
profound enlightenment use
Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot.
writing reuse knows
Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse)
design heavyweights fleeing
The combination of threads, remote-procedure-call interfaces, and heavyweight object-oriented design is especially dangerous... if you are ever invited onto a project that is supposed to feature all three, fleeing in terror might well be an appropriate reaction.
passion people way
You cannot motivate the best people with money. Money is just a way to keep score. The best people in any field are motivated by passion.
attitude interesting problem
If you have the right attitude, interesting problems will find you.
learning bugs problem
Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow (e.g., given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone).