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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
Computing
Responsible
Aren
Willing
Ideas
Good

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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There is no such thing as a free 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.
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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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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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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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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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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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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
Alan Perlis
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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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I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
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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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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis
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You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
Alan Perlis
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
Alan Perlis