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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
Complexity
Simplicity
Doe
Pragmatists
Precede
Follows
Programming

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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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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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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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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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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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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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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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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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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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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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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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