Chuck Connell:

A few years ago, I studied algorithms and complexity. The field is wonderfully clean, with each concept clearly defined, and each result building on earlier proofs.

Now I work on software engineering, and this area is maddeningly slippery.

While new machine architectures are cool, the real limiting challenge in computer science is the problem of creating software.

Software engineering has an essential human component.

Sometimes these people tell us the right information, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes people lie, perhaps for good reasons. Sometimes people are honestly trying to convey correct information but are unable to do so.

This observation leads to Connell's Thesis:

Software engineering will never be a rigorous discipline with proven results, because it involves human activity.

Michael Lopp, on his book Managing Humans:

This book isn't just about management, it's about creating places where people can comfortably build stuff.

I.M. Pei:

Building doesn't mean success. Building ... three or four masterpieces [is] more important than fifty or sixty buildings. ... Quality, not quantity.

Christopher Alexander:

There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named.

The search which we make for this quality, in our own lives, is the central search of any person ... It is the search for those moments and situations when we are most alive.

Paul Graham:

I was in Africa last year and saw a lot of animals in the wild that I'd only seen in zoos before. It was remarkable how different they seemed. Particularly lions. Lions in the wild seem about ten times more alive. They're like different animals.