If you ever talk to, or read an interview with, a musician, they will inevitably, and quickly, end up talking about their influences. While there is an element of nostalgia to this, perhaps even of acknowledging debts, I see its main purpose as helping spread knowledge about who the most interesting set of musicians are. In programming, in contrast, we rarely talk about our influences, other than a frequently expressed allegiance to a single programming language. This seems a shame to me, because it denies new people to our field helpful pointers to programmers and systems whose style might be a useful influence. As a modest attempt to rectify this situation, I'm going to show how one particular system has had a big influence on my programming style over time.