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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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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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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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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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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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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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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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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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Any noun can be verbed.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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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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In English every word can be verbed.
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You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
Alan Perlis