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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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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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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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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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In English every word can be verbed.
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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
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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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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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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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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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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 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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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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