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Well we have Greenspun's Tenth Rule:

"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp."

And this article gives us Robert Virding's First Rule:

"Any sufficiently complicated concurrent program in another language contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Erlang."

So I'm going to go ahead and propose this:

"Any sufficiently memorable technical insight about a programming language contains a slightly adapted, informally-specified, semi-controversial, less-eloquent adaptation of half of Greenspun's Tenth Rule."

Call it Xich's First Rule of Technical Quotes.




Split the difference and make it your 5th rule. We need to restate this rule at least 10 different ways to make it stick in people's minds.




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