"With constant pressure to add features and options and configurations, and to ship code quickly, it's easy to neglect simplicity, even though in the long run simplicity is the key to good software. Simplicity requires more work at the beginning of a project to reduce an idea to its essence and more discipline over the lifetime of a project to distinguish good changes from bad or pernicious ones. With sufficient effort, a good change can be accommodated without compromising what Fred Brooks called the 'conceptual integrity' of the design but a bad change cannot, and a pernicious change trades simplicity for its shallow cousin, convenience. Only through simplicity of design can a system remain stable, secure, and coherent as it grows."
(Preface, The Go Programming Language)
Today I read in the entertaining book of math anecdotes assembled by Steven G. Krantz that the following was scribbled on the wall of a New York City subway station: "I have just found a truly marvelous proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. But the train is coming and I don't have time to write it down."
Since August 9th it is possible to read the diaries of George Orwell online.
Each entry belongs to an entry of his diary that was written 70 years ago.
I am desperately looking for the works of Thomas Ligotti, especially his essay "The conspiracy against the human race". This essay was online for a while but not anymore, unfortunately. Perhaps some visitor of this blog can help...
Since I have stated my favourite playlist, I also want to state my favourite books from 2007.
It's hard to decide but:
Neal Stephenson - "Snow crash"
I read this book several years ago, but decided to reread it after I found it in a second hand bookstore and especially because I only remembered that I really liked it but couldn't remember the plot.
George Orwell - "Down and out in Paris and London"
I read this (together with his book about the Spanish civil war) during my trip to Bosnia and it is absolutely worth reading. He describes his contact with poverty in a honest but also humorous way. Somehow it gave me strength while I was traveling alone in Bosnia.
The books from Béla Hamvas.