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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
Systems
Bird
Early
Technology
Often
Makes
Worm
Worms
Software

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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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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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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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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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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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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
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Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.
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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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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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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, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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