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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
Makes
Worm
Worms
Software
Systems
Bird
Early
Technology
Often

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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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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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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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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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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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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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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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You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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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.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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