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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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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
Describe
Hardly
Pictures
Picture
Swag
Worth
Swagger
Words
Adequately
Described
Sets

More quotes by 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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Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
Alan Perlis
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In programming, as in everything else, to be in error is to be reborn.
Alan Perlis
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
Alan Perlis
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When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
Alan Perlis
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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?
Alan Perlis
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
Alan Perlis
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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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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
Alan Perlis
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There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
Alan Perlis
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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
Alan Perlis
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
Alan Perlis
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In English every word can be verbed.
Alan Perlis
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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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Optimization hinders evolution.
Alan Perlis
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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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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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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
Alan Perlis