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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.

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
Good
Computing
Responsible
Aren
Willing
Ideas

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
Alan Perlis
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?
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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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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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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.
Alan Perlis
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Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
Alan Perlis
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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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In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word frustration.
Alan Perlis
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Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.
Alan Perlis
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
Alan Perlis
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis
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Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
Alan Perlis
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
Alan Perlis
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
Alan Perlis
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Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
Alan Perlis