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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
Genius
Geniuses
Suffering
Fools
Ignore
Complexity
Remove
Suffer
Avoid
Fool
Pragmatists

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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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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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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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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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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
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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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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
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It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. 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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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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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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I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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You think you KNOW when you learn, are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.
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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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