A novice had a problem and could not find a solution. "I know," said the novice, "I'll just use Perl!" The novice now had two problems.
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Re: How is perl braindamaged? (was Re: Is LISP dying?) (Usenet article)
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Paraphrasing Jamie Zawinski, and also formulated as "The unemployed programmer had a problem. 'I know,' said the programmer, 'I'll just learn Perl.' The unemployed programmer now had two problems." in his famous "Perl treatise", Re: can lisp do what perl does easily? (Usenet article)Erik Naggum
The novice-friendly software is more like a misbehaving dog: it shits on the floor, it destroys things, and stinks – the novice-friendly software embodies the opposite of what computer people have dreamed of for decades: artificial stupidity. It's more human.
Erik Naggum
I have not drawn a very rosy picture of the magician. I did not intend to do so. To the novice entering the life and promising himself ease, indolence, and wealth, I should say, "Don't!"
Alexander Herrmann
I asked of Echo 't other day
(Whose words are few and often funny),
What to a novice she could say
Of courtship, love, and matrimony.
Quoth Echo, plainly, — "Matter-o'-money."John Godfrey Saxe
The role of outstanding scientists in influencing younger associates is repeatedly emphasized in the interviews with laureates. Almost invariably they lay great emphasis on the importance of problem-finding, not only problem-solving. They uniformly express the strong conviction that what matters most in their work is a developing sense of taste, of judgment, in acting setting upon problems that are of fundamental importance. And, typically, they report that they acquired this sense for the significant problem during their years of training in evocative environments. Reflecting on his years as a novice in the laboratory of a chemist of the first rank, one laureate reports that he "led me to look for important things, whenever possible, rather than work on endless detail or to work just to improve accuracy rather than making a basic new contribution."
Robert K. Merton
The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implication of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life, in general, so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it — this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience, and they occur in country and in town, and in the most differing stages of education. If experience consists of impressions, it may be said that impressions are experience, just as (have we not seen it?) they are the very air we breathe. Therefore, if I should certainly say to a novice, "Write from experience, and experience only," I should feel that this was a rather tantalizing monition if I were not careful immediately to add, "Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!"
Henry James
Naggum, Erik
Nagin, Ray
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