Anonymity relieves refactoring friction. Have learned that people want — Ward Cunningham

"There is a programming smell here… which is kind of like the smell in your refrigerator, you know. Theres a sign that theres something wrong, but you cant quite put your finger on it. But you know if you leave it there, its only going to get worse."

"Why have a locked wiki when you can instead just post static Web pages?"

"I love computer graphics, but every system Ive seen to try to turn programming into pictures has lost that syntactic element. Theres something about syntax that makes it very precise for reading. I love photography. A photograph will tell a story. But words tell a story even better. Words are more versatile. You can paint a verbal picture thats much richer than you can photograph."

"Often as you move comments around and have similar comments adjacent to each other, you find that half of the words can be cut out. Because a sentence says it all if the sentence is in just the right place. On Wards wiki, the process has been called "refactoring," which is what we call the process in software. Wards wiki is about software and it has software people on it, so they call it refactoring. Anyplace else it would probably be called editing. So on Wards wiki, refactoring is an ongoing process. The assumption is that when something turns out to not be ideal, it will be refactored again. Everything is subject to refactoring."

"It was a turning point in my programming career when I realized that I didnt have to win every argument. Id be talking about code with someone, and Id say, "I think the best way to do it is A." And theyd say, "I think the best way to do it is B. Id say, "Well no, its really A." And theyd say, "Well, we want to do B." It was a turning point for me when I could say, "Fine. Do B. Its not going to hurt us that much if Im wrong. Its not going to hurt us that much if Im right and you do B, because, we can correct mistakes. So lets find out if its a mistake."

"When people work code they can often see things I set out to do that they wouldnt notice otherwise. And there are no obligations to say, "Ward youre brilliant," but sometimes they say, "Ward youre brilliant." And that strokes my ego. Pride of ownership? You bet."

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that theres free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

"With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs."

"The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things; everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it."

"I should say that when people talk about capitalism its a bit of a joke. Theres no such thing. No country, no business class, has ever been willing to subject itself to the free market, free market discipline. Free markets are for others. Like, the Third World is the Third World because they had free markets rammed down their throat. Meanwhile, the enlightened states, England, the United States, others, resorted to massive state intervention to protect private power, and still do. Thats right up to the present. I mean, the Reagan administration for example was the most protectionist in post-war American history. Virtually the entire dynamic economy in the United States is based crucially on state initiative and intervention: computers, the internet, telecommunication, automation, pharmaceutical, you just name it. Run through it, and you find massive ripoffs of the public, meaning, a system in which under one guise or another the public pays the costs and takes the risks, and profit is privatized. Thats very remote from a free market. Free market is like what India had to suffer for a couple hundred years, and most of the rest of the Third World."

"I appeal to all pupils, students and young people, asking you to focus on the horizons that are opening up for you, and which you could only dream of a year ago. Our future will depend on your desire for education and moral values as well as on your entrepreneurial spirit."

"We have created a wealthy society with tens of millions of talented, resourceful individuals who play virtually no role whatsoever as citizens. Bringing these people in — with their networks of influence, their knowledge, and their resources — is the key to creating the capacity for shared intelligence that we need to solve our problems."