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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.

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
English
Computer
Probably
Speak
Made
Speaks
Japan

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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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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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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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Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.
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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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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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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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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 programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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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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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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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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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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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 is no such thing as a free variable.
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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