Stuff and nonsense.

I could spend quite some time talking about Dick Cheney's little hissy fit about the fact that there might just be consequences to ordering the use of torture. Oh, I so enjoy the schadenfreude of thinking of him wetting his pants at the thought that he might be held accountable. But, really, the best response is here.

Besides, the Tao of Programming is much more important.

The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler.

The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages.

Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within the Tao.

But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it.

There once was a master programmer who wrote unstructured programs. A novice programmer, seeking to imitate him, also began to write unstructured programs. When the novice asked the master to evaluate his progress, the master criticized him for writing unstructured programs, saying, “What is appropriate for the master is not appropriate for the novice. You must understand the Tao before transcending structure.”

Thus spake the master programmer:

“Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained.”

In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It changes into a bird whose wings are like clouds filling the sky. When this bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters. This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with the blue sky at its back, returns home.

The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he does not know that the bird has come and gone.

If you work with computers, if you do any coding, you should read the Tao of Programming, you really should.