Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
ALAN PERLISFools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
More Alan Perlis Quotes
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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can’t.
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One man’s constant is another man’s variable.
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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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Don’t have good ideas if you aren’t willing to be responsible for them.
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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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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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches.
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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.
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Dealing with failure is easy.
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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word “frustration”.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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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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Is it possible that software is not like anything else.
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