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
Operate
Data
Structure
Function
Trust
Better
Structures
Functions

More quotes by Alan Perlis

Image
Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
Alan Perlis
Image
Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
Alan Perlis
Image
We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
Alan Perlis
Image
We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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
In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
Alan Perlis
Image
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Alan Perlis
Image
Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
Alan Perlis
Image
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.
Alan Perlis
Image
One man's constant is another man's variable.
Alan Perlis
Image
If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
Alan Perlis
Image
Any noun can be verbed.
Alan Perlis
Image
Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
Image
Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.
Alan Perlis
Image
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?
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
A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
Alan Perlis
Image
There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
Alan Perlis