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.
ALAN PERLISLearning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
More Alan Perlis Quotes
-
-
In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
ALAN PERLIS -
Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.
ALAN PERLIS -
In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
ALAN PERLIS -
The best book on programming for the layman is Alice in Wonderland, but that’s because it’s the best book on anything for the layman.
ALAN PERLIS -
Optimization hinders evolution.
ALAN PERLIS -
I think it is inevitable that people program poorly.
ALAN PERLIS -
Dealing with failure is easy.
ALAN PERLIS -
We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat’s next-to-last theorem.
ALAN PERLIS -
There is no such thing as a free variable.
ALAN PERLIS -
C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
ALAN PERLIS -
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.
ALAN PERLIS -
You’ve solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.
ALAN PERLIS -
You can measure a programmer’s perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
ALAN PERLIS -
Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
ALAN PERLIS -
There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.
ALAN PERLIS