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Erik Naggum Biography

Erik Naggum (June 13, 1965 – June 17, 2009) was a Norwegian computer programmer recognized for his work in the fields of SGML, Emacs and Lisp. Since the early 1990s he was also a provocative participant on various Usenet discussion groups.

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Erik Naggum Quotes

Would you buy a book proudly stating on the cover that its reader is a dummy? Or would you think "of course it's ironic"?

Book, Ironic, Proudly, Stating, Thinking

Unfortunately, nigh the whole world is now duped into thinking that silly fill-in forms on web pages is the way to do user interfaces.

Pages, Silly, Thinking, Unfortunately, World

Languages shape the way we think, or don't.

Languages, Shape, Shapes, Think, Thinking, Way

When all actions are used for feedback, the consequence of making mistakes will be a corrective and appropriate response, because everything everybody does matters. . . . The more selective you are in the feedback you accept, the more insane your reasoning will become as you will necessarily reject corrective feedback that would have led to better reasoning.

Appropriate, Doe, Insane, Mistake, Reject, Used

The aspects you are willing to ignore are more important than the aspects you are willing to accept.

Accepting, Aspect, Aspects, Ignore, Important, Willing

The very word "exist" derives from "to step forth, to stand out".

Derives, Forth, Stand, Standing Out, Steps, Word

It's not that Perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language rewards idiotic behavior in a way that no other language or tool has ever done.

Done, Language, Rewards, Tools

A system needs to be alive and workable even when other people than the first enthusiasts start using it. Reinvention and revolution are enthusiast stuff. Invention and evolution are engineering.

Engineering, People, Needs, Enthusiasts, Reinvention

C is not clean - the language has many gotchas and traps, and although its semantics are simple in some sense, it is not any cleaner than the assembly-language design it is based on.

Clean, Design, Language, Semantics, Sense, Simple

Sufficiently advanced political correctness is indistinguishable from sarcasm.

Correctness, Indistinguishable, Political, Political Correctness, Sarcasm, Sufficiently

Contrary to the foolish notion that syntax is immaterial, people optimize the way they express themselves, and so express themselves differently with different syntaxes.

Different, Notion, People, Syntax, Syntaxes

I have a cat, so I know that when she digs her very sharp claws into my chest or stomach it's really a sign of affection, but I don't see any reason for programming languages to show affection with pain.

Affection, Cat, Pain, Programming, Reason, See

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 do again if I can at all avoid it include smoking, getting drunk enough to puke and waste the whole next day with hang-over, breaking a leg in a violent car crash, getting mugged in New York City, or travel with Aeroflot.

Intention, Name, Names, New York, Next Day, Puke

People search for the meaning of life, but this is the easy question: we are born into a world that presents us with many millenia of collected knowledge and information, and all our predecessors ask of us is that we not waste our brief life ignoring the past only to rediscover or reinvent its lessons badly.

Collected, Lessons, Meaning, Meaning Of Life, Past, People

Norway did not even have a revolution at the time the rest of Europe was busy figuring out human rights and stuff, because we were busy fighting over how to spell it.

Busy, Europe, Fighting, Revolution, Rights, Spell

In Norway, we have a community of people who prefer to use a version of Norwegian that looks very much like lutefisk: Dug up remains from the garbage heap of history and dressed up to look like a tradition.

Community, Look, Looks, Norwegian, People, Version

The ultimate laziness is not using Perl. That saves you so much work you wouldn't believe it if you had never tried it.

Believe, Laziness, Perl, Tried, Ultimate

Sometimes, the only way to learn something really well is to revert to the state of mind of a novice and reawaken to the raw observations that you have accumulated instead of relying on the conclusions you have reached from the exogenous premises absorbed through teaching and bookish learning.

Accumulated, Learn, Mind, Novices, Raw, Teaching

In C++, reinvention is its own reward.

Reinvention, Reward, Rewards

Like many older fans of Free Software and Open Source, I have discovered that it is really only free in the sense that the time you spend on it is worthless.

Fans, Open, Software, Source, Spend, Time

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Erik Naggum Biography

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