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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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
Computer
Specification
Easier
Specifications
Change
Versa
Programming
Vice
Vices
Fit
Program
More quotes by Alan Perlis
There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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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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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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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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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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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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Optimization hinders evolution.
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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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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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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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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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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
