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statico (5018)

Journal of statico (5018)

Sunday January 08, 2006
07:38 PM

openings

[ #28286 ]

The first sentence of any piece of writing is important, and last night I read one of the best openings ever written. It sits atop the acknowledgements of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, a 30 lb., 3-volume boxed tome that contains every Calvin and Hobbes comic strip every drawn:

"As flattering as it is to have a lavish book like this,
it can be a little disturbing to see one's own career
embalmed in a box..."

The ingenuity is underscored by appropriateness. Watterson downplays the magnitude of the collection, yet the contents of the box contains a large staple of my childhood.

Another teriffic opening is on the back cover blurb for Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook, written by chromatic:

"Can you think of a sexier topic in software development
than software testing?"

If there's a hall of fame for this sort of thing, let me know. I have two nominations.

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
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  • I was thinking of Andy Lester when I wrote that, knowing full well that I'd have to apologize for it eventually. Now I suspect I'll have to apologize for this comment too, also eventually.

  • Michael Hoey in a book about the relationship
    between sentences in a text has a good first
    sentence about the fact that if he could say all
    he had to say in his book in one sentence, he
    wouldn't have had to write the book.
  • I saw the set in Costco the other day - it's very impressive looking. I still laugh at Calvin and Hobbes, and I suspect I will continue to do so for another 15 years (at least).
    --
    "Perl users are the Greatful Dead fans of computer science." --slashdot comment