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

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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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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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.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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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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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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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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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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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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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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