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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.

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
Worms
Software
Systems
Bird
Early
Technology
Often
Makes
Worm

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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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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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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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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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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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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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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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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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