Quote

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

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
Explaining
Wake
Program
Head
Nods
Listener
Listeners

More quotes by Alan Perlis

Image
In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.
Alan Perlis
Image
Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
Alan Perlis
Image
When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.
Alan Perlis
Image
One man's constant is another man's variable.
Alan Perlis
Image
Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches: Banality soothes our nerves.
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
Any noun can be verbed.
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
Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.
Alan Perlis
Image
A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
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
Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
Alan Perlis
Image
It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
Alan Perlis
Image
In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can't.
Alan Perlis
Image
A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
Alan Perlis
Image
Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.
Alan Perlis
Image
In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
Alan Perlis
Image
Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write 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