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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

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
Precede
Follows
Programming
Complexity
Simplicity
Doe
Pragmatists

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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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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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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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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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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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In English every word can be verbed.
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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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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Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
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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 programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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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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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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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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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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