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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.

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
Definition
Turning
Definitions
Useful
Obvious
Computer
Computing
Word
Frustrated
Living
Frustration

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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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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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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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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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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?
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