Victor Hugo once said that nothing in this world was so powerful as an idea whose time has come. In our time, the idea is technology, especially info… - Gerald M. Weinberg

Human knowledge is by necessity incomplete. We cannot know in advance what we might be able to know and what might be essentially unknowable. But of one thing we can be sure: if we do not try to find things out, we shall never succeed.

PREFACE PROBLEM: Nobody reads prefaces.
SOLUTION: Call the preface Chapter 1.
NEW PROBLEM CREATED BY SOLUTION: Chapter 1 is boring.
RESOLUTION: Throw away Chapter 1 and call Chapter 2 Chapter 1.

The social science that provides us with the most useful overall model for computer programming is anthropology. With a little artistic license and stretching of the imagination, we could imagine computer programmers as having a culture — a shared set of beliefs and activities which shape their day-to-day activities.