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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.

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

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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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Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
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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.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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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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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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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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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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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.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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The best book on programming for the layman is Alice in Wonderland, but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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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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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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