Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn’t.
ALAN PERLISWe are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat’s next-to-last theorem.
More Alan Perlis Quotes
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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“Toward what end, toward what end?”-but do not ask it too often lest you pass up the fun of programming for the constipation of bittersweet philosophy.
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Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can’t.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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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.
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Banality soothes our nerves.
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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
ALAN PERLIS