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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.

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
Computer
Science
Embarrassed

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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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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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I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
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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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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
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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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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.
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Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. 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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In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
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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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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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