Richard P. Gabriel is musician, poet, and respected Lisp hacker. Probably generally best known for coining the phrase “worse is better“ with his essays on why Unix and C prevailed over superior alternatives, he’s also the author of several books including Innovation Happens Elsewhere (with Ron Goldman).

I’ve been greatly enjoying reading his various works from the past couple decades, and recently stumbled across a particularly relevant essay of his that I want to share. It’s called Lessons From The Science of Nothing At All, and begins poetically enough: “Where I come from we make things from nothing – from dreams and fantasies.”