The Three Unix Virtues

A lot of people think of me as a "Mac person". But, in reality, I'm a Unix nerd. I just happen to also really like Photoshop, and I haven't found any other Unix flavors that will run it. The secret is that Mac OS X is really Unix under the hood. I spend more time on the prompt than I do in the traditional windows desktop interface.

In the surprisingly complicated philosophy behind Unix there are three virtues which make for an excellent programmer: Arrogance, Laziness and Impatience. Much in the way the capitalism makes greed good, these normally horrible vices become strengths within the Unix world. Arrogance leads a programmer to attempt the impossible. Laziness encourages the programmer to be efficient, and bring his arrogant goals down to the real world. And impatience makes the programmer push his deadlines and work to get it done. These virtues balance each other. Impatience, for example, tempers Laziness. Laziness tempers Arrogance. And so forth.

I think, if I'm to be honest, my weakness is that I'm too patient. I need to work on being in more of a hurry sometimes.