
The Benefits of a Classical Education - jackchristopher
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/benefits-classical-education.html
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theblackbox
"Lector, si monumentum requiris, Circumspice."

One I've always loved, inscribed above the crypt containing the grave of
Christopher Wren in St. Paul's Cathedral. Translated as: "Reader, if you seek
his memorial, look around you"

Think that would work equally well for Tim O'Reilly, to the point of a nice
Latin pun ;)

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tomjen
That is a good one, though I fancy this more:

"Good friend for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here: Blest be
the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones. Epitaph
on his tomb, probably self composed" -- Shakespeare

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michael_dorfman
Just out of curiousity, why do you fancy that one? It always struck me as the
most inept set of four lines Shakespeare ever wrote.

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gtani
I have a hazy recollection that classical education used to mean mathematics,
Greek and latin. I take that combination to be pretty good prep for hacking
haskell, clojure, erlang, F#, whatever.

Especially with some logic, stats/probability, applied math, linguistics, and
intro classes to assembler and C thrown in.

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mlLK
I guess this explains how he got into publishing books for
programmers/developers. . .

 _O'Reilly was initially interested. . .but after graduating. . .with a B.A.
cum laude in Classics he became involved in the field of computer manuals._

[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_O%27Reilly>]

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Ardit20
"I've been deeply influenced by Aristotle's idea that virtue is a habit,
something you practice and get better at, rather than something that comes
naturally."

For an individual who has studied classics, you would expect that he would
know that all the ancients, greek and romans, considered virtue as a habit,
not Aristotle alone. It was rather a cultural thing which is why the Romans
emphasised training their pupils to be good citizens by teachers of great
character so that they can imitate their habits.

