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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
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Matters
Live
Program
Matter
Computer
Think
Training
Substantially
Thinking
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Poorly
People
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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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In English every word can be verbed.
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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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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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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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When someone says, I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done, give him a lollipop.
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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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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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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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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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A picture is worth 10K words - but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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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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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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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
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The best book on programming for the layman is Alice in Wonderland, but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
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