Back in the 1980s, Jon Bentley wrote a column for Communications of the ACM called Programming Pearls. The columns typically considered a programming technique or problem and were very popular. The columns were later published in book form as Programming Pearls and More Programming Pearls. If you haven’t read these books, you definitely should. Programming Pearls, at least, appears to be available for free download.
I just came across a pointer to one of those columns, Bumper-Sticker Computer Science. I remember reading it in More Programming Pearls and I’m pretty sure that’s where I first learned the rule of thumb that π seconds is a nanocentury. The theme of the column is short computer science aphorisms—such as Duff’s remark about π seconds—that could conceivably be printed on a bumper sticker.
If you haven’t seen that column, you should take it look. It’s entertaining but, more importantly, distills a lot of our profession’s traditional wisdom. It will take only 5 or 10 minutes to read and you’re sure to enjoy it and probably learn a thing or two as well.