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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

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
Believe
Artificial
Years
Spent
Make
Intelligence
Computer
Technology
Year
Science
Enough

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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There is no such thing as a free variable.
Alan Perlis
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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?
Alan Perlis
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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
Alan Perlis
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Optimization hinders evolution.
Alan Perlis
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Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?
Alan Perlis
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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
Alan Perlis
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis
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You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
Alan Perlis
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
Alan Perlis
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
Alan Perlis
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
Alan Perlis
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis
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Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
Alan Perlis
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
Alan Perlis
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
Alan Perlis
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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
Alan Perlis