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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.

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
Learn
Inevitable
Helping
Matters
Live
Program
Matter
Computer
Think
Training
Substantially
Thinking
Learning
Poorly
People
Technology
Programming
Help
Treatment

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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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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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Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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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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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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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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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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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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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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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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