TITLE: Beautiful Sentences, Programming Languages Division
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: February 14, 2012  3:51 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
From
<A HREF="http://blog.eisele.net/2012/02/heroes-of-java-ward-cunningham.html">
   The Heroes of Java: Ward Cunningham</A>
(emphasis added):

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Making a new language is the ultimate power move.  There are
lots of ways to do it. Get to know them all.  <B>A switch
statement inside a for loop makes an interpreter.  When you
write that, ask yourself: what language am I interpreting?</B>
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Those last two sentences distill a few weeks of a course on
programming languages into an idea that spans all of computer
science.  Beautiful.

As in most conversations with Ward, this one is full of good
sentences, including:

<EM>The shortest path to exceeding expectations rarely goes
through meeting expectations</EM>.

And:

<EM>When [pair programming] you can assume both people bring
something to the collaboration.  I'd rather find my
colleague's strength or passion and learn from them as we go
forward together</EM>.

In my experience, Ward brings the same mindset to all of his
professional interactions.  I am
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-11.html#e2005-11-04T08_34_32.htm">
   still a fan</A>,
though I have never
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-07.html#e2004-07-19T10_52_37.htm">
   asked for his autograph</A>.
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