A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
ALAN PERLISIn computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
More Alan Perlis Quotes
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.
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A picture is worth 10K words – but only those to describe the picture.
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Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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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.
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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One man’s constant is another man’s variable.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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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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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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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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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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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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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
ALAN PERLIS