Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
ALAN PERLISIf a listener nods his head when you’re explaining your program, wake him up.
More Alan Perlis Quotes
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Any noun can be verbed.
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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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Is it possible that software is not like anything else.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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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.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program.
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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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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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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can’t.
ALAN PERLIS