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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
Often
Makes
Worm
Worms
Software
Systems
Bird
Early
Technology

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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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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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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 someone says, I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done, give him a lollipop.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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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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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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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
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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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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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