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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.

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
Write
Third
Two
Thirds
Writing
Errors
Way
Program
Programmers
Computer
Programs
Works
Programming
Ways
Software
Free
Error

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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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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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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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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.
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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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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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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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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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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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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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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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