It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program.
ALAN PERLISIn software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
More Alan Perlis Quotes
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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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Optimization hinders evolution.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can’t.
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I think that it’s extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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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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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches.
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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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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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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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Dealing with failure is easy.
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You’ve solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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One can only display complex information in the mind.
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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.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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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.
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat’s next-to-last theorem.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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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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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.
ALAN PERLIS