Quote

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?

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
Point
Else
Discarded
Anything
Bubble
Whole
Soap
Always
Bubbles
Like
Software
Meant
Possible

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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows 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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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?
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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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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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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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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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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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Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
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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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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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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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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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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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