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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.

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
Universe
Language
Good
Thinking
Conceptual
Programming
Learning

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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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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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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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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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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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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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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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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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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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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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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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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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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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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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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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