An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program.
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But when I’m talking to journalists I just say “programmer” or something like that.
On the internet nobody can hear you being subtle.
Theory and practice sometimes clash. And when that happens, theory loses. Every single time.
I think, fundamentally, open source does tend to be more stable software. It’s the right way to do things.
I think of myself as an engineer, not as a visionary or ‘big thinker.’ I don’t have any lofty goals.
An individual developer like me cares about writing the new code and making it as interesting and efficient as possible. But very few people want to do the testing.
In many cases, the user interface to a program is the most important part for a commercial company: whether the programs works correctly or not seems to be secondary.
I don’t think I’m unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light.
See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too.
The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children.
Don’t hurry your code. Make sure it works well and is well designed. Don’t worry about timing.
I started Linux as a desktop operating system. And it’s the only area where Linux hasn’t completely taken over. That just annoys the hell out of me.
A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine.
If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.
Linux is only free if your time has no value.
My number one piece of advice is: you should learn how to program.
Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand.
The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete.
Simply put: we don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services. And we think this is a good way to build something.