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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.

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
Weed
Programming
Computer
Flower
Grows
Fortran
Every
Blooms
Hardy
Occasionally

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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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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't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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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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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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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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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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