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

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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.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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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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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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I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
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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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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.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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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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It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
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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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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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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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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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