I have actually programmed a fair bit in Perl, like I have C++ code published with my name on it. Other things I have tried and have no intention to … - Erik Naggum

You become a serious programmer by going through a stage where you are fully aware of the degree to which you know the specification, meaning both the explicit and the tacit specification of your language and of your problem. "Hey, it works most of the time" is the very antithesis of a serious programmer, and certain languages can only support code like that.

Structure is nothing if it is all you got. Skeletons spook people if they try to walk around on their own. I really wonder why XML does not.

I went to my local bookstore the other day. I wanted to give a beautifully bound Bible to a Christian friend of mine. Suddenly, I felt space around me warp and I was in USENET space. People from comp.lang.scheme offered me a beutifully bound Torah. People from comp.lang.dylan offered me a beautifully bound Koran. People from elsewhere on the Net offered me beautifully bound copies of The Lord of the Rings, Atlas Shrugged, A New Kind of Science, and then other people chimed in with suggestions for Gray's Anatomy, The Chicago Manual of Style, and the 25-year anniversary edition of Gödel, Escher, Bach, all of them arguing that if I wanted the most important book, I would want their suggestions. I scremed, "Enough!", and space just as suddenly warped back to the bookstore and the very helpful young Muslim woman behind the counter went to find a soft-leather-bound Bible with gold edges on the India paper, just like I had wanted and asked for, without unwelcome suggestions or anyone pretending to know better than me. It was so respectful I almost got religion, myself.