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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.

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
Even
Program
Think
Learning
Thinking
Teach
Sure
Learn
Write
Certain
Writing
Programming

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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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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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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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.
Alan Perlis
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
Alan Perlis
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
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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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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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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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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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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.
Alan Perlis
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
Alan Perlis
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
Alan Perlis
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
Alan Perlis
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
Alan Perlis