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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.

Alan Perlis

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Alan Perlis
Age: 67 †
Born: 1922
Born: April 1
Died: 1990
Died: February 7
Computer Scientist
Mathematician
University Teacher
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Alan Jay Perlis
Alan J. Perlis
Suffer
Avoid
Fool
Pragmatists
Genius
Geniuses
Suffering
Fools
Ignore
Complexity
Remove

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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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A picture is worth 10K words - but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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Every reader should ask himself periodically “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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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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One can only display complex information in the mind. Like seeing, movement or flow or alteration of view is more important than the static picture, no matter how lovely.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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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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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: 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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