"Remember, just because Microsoft can do something, doesnt mean you can. Microsoft makes their own gravity. Normal rules dont apply to them."
Avram Joel Spolsky is a software engineer and writer. He is the author of Joel on Software, a blog on software development, and the creator of the project management software Trello. He was a Program Manager on the Microsoft Excel team between 1991 and 1994. He later founded Fog Creek Software in 2000 and launched the Joel on Software blog. In 2008, he launched the Stack Overflow programmer Q&A si
"If something seems possible, thats probably because someone is already doing it. When something seems that it cant possibly work, nobody tries it. Real innovation happens when someone tries anyway, overlooking an obvious flaw, and finds a way to make an idea work."
"Beware of Methodologies. They are a great way to bring everyone up to a dismal, but passable, level of performance, but at the same time, they are aggravating to more talented people who chafe at the restrictions that are placed on them."
"Full service brokers, in this day and age of low cost mutual funds and discount brokers, are really nothing more than machines for ripping off retail investors."
"The secret of Big Macs is that theyre not very good, but every one is not very good in exactly the same way."
"Most college students, fortunately, are brash enough never to bother asking their elders for advice, which, in the field of computer science, is a good thing, because their elders are apt to say goofy, antediluvian things like "the demand for keypunch operators will exceed 100,000,000 by the year 2010" and "lisp careers are really very hot right now."
"People ridiculously overvalue aesthetics and beauty when evaluating products. Its one of the reasons iPods, and, for that matter, Keanu Reeves, are so successful."