Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Easy
Dealing
Also
Improve
Problem
Investing
Hard
Math
Work
Handle
Failure
Wrong
Success
Solved

More quotes by Alan Perlis

Image
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
Image
In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
Alan Perlis
Image
Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
Image
If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
Alan Perlis
Image
We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
Alan Perlis
Image
FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
Alan Perlis
Image
One man's constant is another man's variable.
Alan Perlis
Image
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
Alan Perlis
Image
If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
Alan Perlis
Image
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
Image
A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
Alan Perlis
Image
Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
Alan Perlis
Image
You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
Alan Perlis
Image
Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by the completeness of their case analysis.
Alan Perlis
Image
In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
Alan Perlis
Image
I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
Alan Perlis
Image
Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
Image
Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
Alan Perlis
Image
In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
Alan Perlis
Image
When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
Alan Perlis