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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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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
Ingenuity
Measured
Analysis
Logic
Case
Cases
Completeness
Programmers

More quotes by 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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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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In English every word can be verbed.
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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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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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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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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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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To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.
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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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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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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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