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

More quotes by Alan Perlis

Image
If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
Alan Perlis
Image
Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
Alan Perlis
Image
FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
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
In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
Alan Perlis
Image
Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
Alan Perlis
Image
We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
Alan Perlis
Image
When someone says, I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done, give him a lollipop.
Alan Perlis
Image
Optimization hinders evolution.
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
Every reader should ask himself periodically “Toward what end, toward what end?”—but do not ask it too often lest you pass up the fun of programming for the constipation of bittersweet philosophy.
Alan Perlis
Image
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
Alan Perlis
Image
Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Alan Perlis
Image
It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
Alan Perlis
Image
You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
Alan Perlis
Image
There is no such thing as a free variable.
Alan Perlis
Image
If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
Alan Perlis
Image
We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
Alan Perlis
Image
A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
Alan Perlis
Image
There are two ways to write error-free programs only the third one works.
Alan Perlis