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

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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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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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You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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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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Any noun 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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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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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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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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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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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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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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