You can measure a programmer’s perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
ALAN PERLISIf you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
More Alan Perlis Quotes
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Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle.
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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word “frustration”.
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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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Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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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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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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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
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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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You think you KNOW when you learn.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.
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Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
ALAN PERLIS






