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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
Case
Cases
Completeness
Programmers
Ingenuity
Measured
Analysis
Logic

More quotes by Alan Perlis

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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
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In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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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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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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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
Alan Perlis
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Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?
Alan Perlis
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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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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.
Alan Perlis
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Alan Perlis
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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
Alan Perlis
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
Alan Perlis
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One man's constant is another man's variable.
Alan Perlis
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
Alan Perlis
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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.
Alan Perlis