We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
ALAN PERLISWhen someone says, “I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done,” give him a lollipop.
More Alan Perlis Quotes
-
-
In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
ALAN PERLIS -
Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
ALAN PERLIS -
What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?
ALAN PERLIS -
Banality soothes our nerves.
ALAN PERLIS -
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 -
There is no such thing as a free variable.
ALAN PERLIS -
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.
ALAN PERLIS -
Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
ALAN PERLIS -
Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
ALAN PERLIS -
A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
ALAN PERLIS -
C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
ALAN PERLIS -
Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
ALAN PERLIS -
“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.
ALAN PERLIS -
Dealing with failure is easy.
ALAN PERLIS -
One can’t proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
ALAN PERLIS