Quote

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
Definitions
Useful
Obvious
Computer
Computing
Word
Frustrated
Living
Frustration
Definition
Turning

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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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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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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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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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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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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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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 man's constant is another man's variable.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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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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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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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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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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