Quote

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.

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
Layman
Wonderland
Alice
Programming
Anything
Best
Book

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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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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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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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A picture is worth 10K words - but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.
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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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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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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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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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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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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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You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
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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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