Quote

When someone says, I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done, give him a lollipop.

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
Someone
Give
Need
Lollipop
Done
Developers
Giving
Geek
Needs
Programming
Says
Language

More quotes by Alan Perlis

Image
Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
Alan Perlis
Image
One man's constant is another man's variable.
Alan Perlis
Image
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.
Alan Perlis
Image
I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
Alan Perlis
Image
C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
Alan Perlis
Image
A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
Alan Perlis
Image
In English every word can be verbed.
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
In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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
Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
Alan Perlis
Image
In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
Alan Perlis
Image
FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
Alan Perlis
Image
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.
Alan Perlis
Image
We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
Alan Perlis
Image
Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
Image
There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
Alan Perlis
Image
In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
Alan Perlis
Image
Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
Image
There is no such thing as a free variable.
Alan Perlis