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Optimization hinders evolution.

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
Optimization
Hinders
Hinder
Programming
Evolution
Learning

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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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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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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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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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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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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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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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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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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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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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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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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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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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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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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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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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