FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed – it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
ALAN PERLISFORTRAN is not a flower but a weed – it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
ALAN PERLISEverything should be built top-down, except the first time.
ALAN PERLISFools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
ALAN PERLISIn man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can’t.
ALAN PERLISTraining will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
ALAN PERLISWhen 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 PERLISIt is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
ALAN PERLISWe are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat’s next-to-last theorem.
ALAN PERLISA LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
ALAN PERLISComputer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
ALAN PERLISOnce you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
ALAN PERLISTo understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
ALAN PERLISIt is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
ALAN PERLISC programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
ALAN PERLISWe began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines.
ALAN PERLISAny noun can be verbed.
ALAN PERLIS