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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

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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 computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
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You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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One man's constant is another man's variable.
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Any noun can be verbed.
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A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
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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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Optimization hinders evolution.
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