In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
ALAN PERLISBecause of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches.
More Alan Perlis Quotes
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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A picture is worth 10K words – but only those to describe the picture.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can’t.
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat’s next-to-last theorem.
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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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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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Don’t have good ideas if you aren’t willing to be responsible for them.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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I think that it’s extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing.
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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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I think it is inevitable that people program poorly.
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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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Dealing with failure is easy.
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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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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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We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines.
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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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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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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You think you KNOW when you learn.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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One can only display complex information in the mind.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
ALAN PERLIS