principles of software distillation:
Old software is usually small and new software is usually large. A distilled program can be old or new, but is always small, and is powerful by its choice of ideas, not its implementation size.
A distilled program has the conciseness of an initial version and the refinement of a final version.
A distilled program is a finished work, but remains hackable due to its small size, allowing it to serve as the starting point for new works.
Many people write programs, but few stick with a program long enough to distill it.
