Quote

It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.

Alan Perlis

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Easier
Specifications
Change
Versa
Programming
Vice
Vices
Fit
Program
Computer
Specification

More quotes by Alan Perlis

Image
You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
Alan Perlis
Image
Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
Alan Perlis
Image
In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
Alan Perlis
Image
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.
Alan Perlis
Image
In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
Alan Perlis
Image
There is no such thing as a free variable.
Alan Perlis
Image
In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
Alan Perlis
Image
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.
Alan Perlis
Image
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?
Alan Perlis
Image
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Alan Perlis
Image
Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
Alan Perlis
Image
Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.
Alan Perlis
Image
When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
Alan Perlis
Image
Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
Alan Perlis
Image
Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
Alan Perlis
Image
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
Alan Perlis
Image
It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
Alan Perlis
Image
Optimization hinders evolution.
Alan Perlis
Image
C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
Alan Perlis
Image
We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
Alan Perlis