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A comment on Jon Bentley's Programming Pearls: 25 years old, still brilliant.

Re:Jon Bentley's Programming Pearls: 25 years old, still bri... by melling on Monday April 18, 2011 @09:29PM (#2461365)
From his book: "It is faster to make a four-inch mirror and then a six-inch mirror than to make a six-inch mirror."

This is one of my favorite programming quotes. I haven't seen it used much over the years.

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Re:Jon Bentley's Programming Pearls: 25 years old, still bri... by MikeTaylor on Tuesday April 19, 2011 @03:57AM (#2461967)
That one is a quote from Ken Thompson, the inventor of (among much else), Unix and UTF-8. It is quoted in _Programming Pearls_, though -- I think, in the sequel rather than the original.
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Re:Jon Bentley's Programming Pearls: 25 years old, still bri... by cafard on Tuesday April 19, 2011 @09:08AM (#2462484)
As noted, a quotation from Ken Thompson. It appears in the chapter "Bumper Sticker Computer Science" in _More Programming Pearls" along with many other fine aphorisms.
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