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.
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.
