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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.

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
Anything
Best
Book
Layman
Wonderland
Alice
Programming

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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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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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.
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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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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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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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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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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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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 software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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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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