Quote

It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.

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
Better
Structures
Functions
Operate
Data
Structure
Function
Trust

More quotes by Alan Perlis

Image
Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.
Alan Perlis
Image
If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
Alan Perlis
Image
FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
Alan Perlis
Image
In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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
There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
Alan Perlis
Image
C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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
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
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
Alan Perlis
Image
Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
Alan Perlis
Image
Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
Alan Perlis
Image
Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
Alan Perlis
Image
When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
Alan Perlis
Image
In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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
A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
Alan Perlis
Image
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.
Alan Perlis
Image
You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
Alan Perlis
Image
Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
Alan Perlis