It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
ALAN PERLISIt goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program.
More Alan Perlis Quotes
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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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One man’s constant is another man’s variable.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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Is it possible that software is not like anything else.
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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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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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When 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.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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One can only display complex information in the mind.
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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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Optimization hinders evolution.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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I think it is inevitable that people program poorly.
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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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If a listener nods his head when you’re explaining your program, wake him up.
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Banality soothes our nerves.
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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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One can’t proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can’t.
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There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.
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Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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Are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.
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