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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
Operate
Data
Structure
Function
Trust
Better
Structures
Functions

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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 computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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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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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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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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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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Any noun can be verbed.
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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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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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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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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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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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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