KISS: Use REST always, never SOAP.

I've implemented many Web services using both standards and I can tell you categorically that in hindsight I should have used REST always.

Some time ago, I started to develop programs using tiny, super general, higher-order functions and I began to borrow a little from functional programming. I noticed interesting things about these new programs. They called for special language features that I had until then heard of but never really needed. I'm referring to language features like support for first-class functions, closures, and lexical binding. The programs I produced were smaller and easier to debug than programs written in a traditional procedural style.

The big problem with Perl is that it’s easy to learn, but difficult to learn right. It has a tough learning curve and it can take years to master, even if you already know many other programming languages.

However, I’ve never met a person that uses the advanced features of Perl (closures in an OO context, hash dispatchers, higher-order methods, super general functions, and so on) that didn’t write beautiful, concise, fast, and bug-free code. People that really grok Perl (and there are precious few of those because of the learning curve) don’t bash Perl.

What is Emacs?

Emacs is not just an editor. It's an editor construction kit that comes with a half-finished editor. And that's one of the features that makes it by far the best text editor in the world. The other feature is that you program it in Lisp. O.K., so Elisp (Emacs's Lisp) is an antiquated dynamically scoped Lisp, but it's still a real Lisp with Lisp macros and all.