Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.
ALAN PERLISAdapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
More Alan Perlis Quotes
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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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Like seeing, movement or flow or alteration of view is more important than the static picture, no matter how lovely.
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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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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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One can only display complex information in the mind.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can’t.
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A picture is worth 10K words – but only those to describe the picture.
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Dealing with failure is easy.
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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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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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat’s next-to-last theorem.
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
ALAN PERLIS