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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Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.
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A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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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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Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn’t.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.
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One can’t proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can’t.
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Don’t have good ideas if you aren’t willing to be responsible for them.
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I think it is inevitable that people program poorly.
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Is it possible that software is not like anything else.
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If a listener nods his head when you’re explaining your program, wake him up.
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?
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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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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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You’ve solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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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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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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