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If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.

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
Listener
Listeners
Explaining
Wake
Program
Head
Nods

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Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
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Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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There is no such thing as a free variable.
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Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
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A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.
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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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If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
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We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
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We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
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One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
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Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.
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When someone says, I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done, give him a lollipop.
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In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
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Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
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It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
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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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