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You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.

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
Attitude
Fortran
Noting
Programmer
Programmers
Vitality
Continuing
Measure
Perspective

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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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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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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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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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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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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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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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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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