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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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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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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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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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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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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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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 computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
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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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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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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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