My interest in computers and programming languages is fundamentally pragmatic.

我对计算机和编程语言的兴趣基本上是实用主义的。

I feel most at home with the empiricists rather than with the idealists.... That is, I tend to prefer Aristotle to Plato, Hume to Descartes, and shake my head sadly over Pascal. I find comprehensive "systems" like those of Plato and Kant fascinating, yet fundamentally unsatisfying in that they appear to me dangerously remote from everyday experiences and the essential peculiarities of individuals.

我更习惯经验主义而不是理想主义...也就是，我更喜欢亚里士多德而不是柏拉图，更喜欢休谟而不是笛卡尔，对帕斯卡只能难过地摇摇头。我发现一些完备的“系统”就像柏拉图和康德梦想的那样，但基本上不能让我满意，因为它们离我的日常经验极其遥远，也与个人的基本特点相去甚远。

I find Kierkegaard's almost fanatical concern for the individual and keen psychological insights much more appealing than the grandiose schemes and concern for humanity in the abstract of Hegel or Marx. Respect for groups that doesn't include respect for individuals of those groups isn't respect at all. Many C++ design decisions have their roots in my dislike for forcing people to do things in some particular way. In history, some of the worst disasters have been caused by idealists trying to force people into "doing what is good for them." Such idealism not only leads to suffering among its innocent victims, but also to delusion and corruption of the idealists applying the force. I also find idealists prone to ignore experience and experiment that inconveniently clashes with dogma or theory. Where ideals clash and sometimes even when pundits seem to agree, I prefer to provide support that gives the programmer a choice.

我发现克尔凯郭尔对个人的狂热关注和敏锐的心理学洞见对我来说更有吸引力，远甚于黑格尔或马克思对人生的崇高计划和关注。尊重一个群体而不尊重群体中的个人，则根本不是尊重。许多C++的设计决定的根源都在于我不喜欢强制人们用某种特定的方式来做事情。从历史上看，许多最大的灾难都来自于理想主义者试图强迫人们“做对他们有好处的事情”。这种理想主义不仅会导致无辜的受害者遭受痛苦，而且会导致理想主义者应用强制力时的幻觉和腐败。我也发现理想主义者常常倾向于忽略经验和实验，这些经验和实验不巧恰好与教义或理论相抵触。当理想发生冲突时，有时甚至是权威们一致同意时，我倾向于提供支持，让程序员自行选择。