Alan Perlis Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : "Epigrams on Programming". ACM SIGPLAN Notices 17 (9), pp. 7-13, pu.inf.uni-tuebingen.de. September 1982.
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“It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.”
-- Alan Perlis -
“A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : "Epigrams on Programming". ACM SIGPLAN Notices 17 (9), pp. 7-13, pu.inf.uni-tuebingen.de. September 1982.
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“There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : "Epigrams on Programming". ACM "SIGPLAN" Notices 17 (9), (pp. 7-13), September 1982.
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“A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : "Epigrams on Programming". ACM SIGPLAN Notices 17 (9), pp. 7-13, pu.inf.uni-tuebingen.de. September 1982.
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“In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.”
-- Alan Perlis -
“Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : "Epigrams on Programming". ACM SIGPLAN Notices 17 (9), pp. 7-13, pu.inf.uni-tuebingen.de. September 1982.
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“Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : "Epigrams on Programming". ACM SIGPLAN Notices 17 (9), pp. 7-13, pu.inf.uni-tuebingen.de. September 1982.
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“Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : "Epigrams on Programming". ACM SIGPLAN Notices 17 (9), pp. 7-13, pu.inf.uni-tuebingen.de. September 1982.
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“Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.”
-- Alan Perlis -
“In English every word can be verbed.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : "Epigrams on Programming". ACM SIGPLAN Notices 17 (9), pp. 7-13, pu.inf.uni-tuebingen.de. September 1982.
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“Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : "Epigrams on Programming". ACM SIGPLAN Notices 17 (9), pp. 7-13, pu.inf.uni-tuebingen.de. September 1982.
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“It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.”
-- Alan Perlis -
“Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : "Epigrams on Programming". ACM SIGPLAN Notices 17 (9), pp. 7-13, pu.inf.uni-tuebingen.de. September 1982.
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“FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.”
-- Alan Perlis -
“If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.”
-- Alan Perlis -
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“You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.”
-- Alan Perlis -
“It goes against the grain of modern education to teach students to program. What fun is there to making plans, acquiring discipline, organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self critical.”
-- Alan Perlis -
“I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". Textbook by Gerald Jay Sussman and Hal Abelson, 2nd edition, 1996.
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“When someone says, "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done," give him a lollipop.”
-- Alan Perlis -
“In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word "frustration".”
-- Alan Perlis -
“If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.”
-- Alan Perlis -
“I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : Source: www.truth-out.org
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“The best book on programming for the layman is 'Alice in Wonderland'; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.”
-- Alan PerlisSource : "Epigrams on Programming". ACM "SIGPLAN" Notices 17 (9), (pp. 7-13), September 1982.
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“Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?”
-- Alan Perlis -
“The computing field is always in need of new cliches.”
-- Alan Perlis -
“In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.”
-- Alan Perlis -
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“In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.”
-- Alan Perlis -
“LISP programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing.”
-- Alan Perlis
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