Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
ALAN PERLISThat it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?
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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A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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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.
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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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We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines.
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Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
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A picture is worth 10K words – but only those to describe the picture.
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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches.
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Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
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It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program.
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If a listener nods his head when you’re explaining your program, wake him up.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed – it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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One can only display complex information in the mind.
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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Don’t have good ideas if you aren’t willing to be responsible for them.
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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.
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Are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.
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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
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Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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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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It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
ALAN PERLIS