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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.

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
Better
Structures
Functions
Operate
Data
Structure
Function
Trust

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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
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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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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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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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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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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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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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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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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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