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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.

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
Levels
Programmers
Attention
Irrelevant
Language
Programs
Programming
Require
Lows
Program
Level

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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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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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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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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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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 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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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?
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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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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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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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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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