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Eric S. Raymond Biography

Eric S. Raymond

Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), 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 New Hacker's Dictionary.

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Eric S. Raymond Quotes

Software is largely a service industry operating under the persistent but unfounded delusion that it is a manufacturing industry

Delusion, Industry, Largely, Persistent, Software

Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.

Customers, Early, Programming, Release

The ARPAnet was the first transcontinental, high-speed computer network.

Arpanet, Computer, Firsts, Network, Speed

Grovelling is not a substitute for doing your homework.

Grovelling, Homework, Substitute, Substitutes

Any tool should be useful in the expected way, but a truly great tool lends itself to uses you never expected.

Expected, Lends, Tool, Tools, Use, Way

Alchemists turned into chemists when they stopped keeping secrets.

Alchemist, Chemists, Keeping, Keeping Secrets, Knowledge, Turned

Rushing to optimize before the bottlenecks are known may be the only error to have ruined more designs than feature creep. From tortured code to incomprehensible data layouts, the results of obsessing about speed or memory or disk usage at the expense of transparency and simplicity are everywhere. They spawn innumerable bugs and cost millions of man-hours - often, just to get marginal gains in the use of some resource much less expensive than debugging time

Bottlenecks, Data, Incomprehensible, Memories, Men, Speed

In early 1993, a hostile observer might have had grounds for thinking that the Unix story was almost played out, and with it the fortunes of the hacker tribe.

Hacker, Hostile, Might, Stories, Thinking

With enough eyes, all bugs are shallow.

Bugs, Enough, Eye, Eyes

Free markets select for winning solutions.

Free Market, Markets, Select, Solutions, Winning

The workstation-class machines built by Sun and others opened up new worlds for hackers.

Class, Machines, Opened, Sun, World

Today I am one of the senior technical cadre that makes the Internet work, and a core Linux and open-source developer.

Cadre, Linux, Senior, Today, Work

Linux evolved in a completely different way. From nearly the beginning, it was rather casually hacked on by huge numbers of volunteers coordinating only through the Internet.

Beginning, Casually, Different, Hacked, Numbers, Volunteer

And for any agents or proxy of the regime interested in asking me questions face to face, I've got some bullets slathered in pork fat to make you feel extra special welcome.

Asking, Make, Pork, Special, Welcome

That stupid people are more violent is a fact independent of skin color.

Color, Independent, Skin, Skin Color, Stupid, Violent

The easiest programs to use are those which demand the least new learning from the user

Demand, Easiest, Program, Use

Often, the most striking and innovative solutions come from realizing that your concept of the problem was wrong.

Come, Innovative, Problem, Programming, Realizing, Wrong

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

Brain, Human, Look, Looks, Simple, Software

When writing gateway software of any kind, take pains to disturb the data stream as little as possible - and never throw away information unless the recipient forces you to!

Data, Disturb, Pain, Possible, Writing

Lisp was far more powerful and flexible than any other language of its day; in fact, it is still a better design than most languages of today, twenty-five years later. Lisp freed ITS's hackers to think in unusual and creative ways. It was a major factor in their successes, and remains one of hackerdom's favorite languages.

Freed, Powerful, Think, Thinking, Unusual, Years

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